


Spy Games

by salacious_crumpet



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Past Torture, Romance, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:52:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 52,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salacious_crumpet/pseuds/salacious_crumpet
Summary: Following in the wake of the disaster that was Ziost, Republic SIS Agent Theron Shan is given one last chance to keep his head above water. The assignment? Taking down the Red Blade - the Imperial agent formerly known as Cipher Nine.Things ... do not go exactly as planned. Becauseof coursethey don't.





	1. Tick Tock

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a part of the "Fire Meet Detonite" series and features an Imperial agent and Theron Shan who are different people. It takes place in the (very vague) timeline post-Invasion of Ziost and before Knights of the Fallen Empire, and so will include spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline as well as Shadows of Revan and Ziost. In this timeline, the Agent was _not_ involved in SoR and did not go to Ziost but was instead working as an independent contractor, having left the service of the Empire following the main storyline.
> 
> Note on Tags: If you've read my other works you might have a general idea of the themes I usually explore. I will update the tags if and when it becomes necessary, but please bear in mind that both Theron Shan and Cipher Nine have fairly dark histories rife with betrayal and abuse, and keep yourself safe.

The Red Light Sector on Nar Shaddaa was never going to be one of Theron Shan’s favourite places on the Smuggler’s Moon. The entire planet had an air of desperation about it, but there was something about the Red Light Sector in particular that practically _screamed_ desperation to him. Partly it was the touristy central core, which the Hutt Cartel patrolled regularly because dead tourists made for lousy customers; there, rich socialites from Alderaan or Dromund Kaas could come and get their kicks and pretend that they were dipping their dainty toes into the seedy underbelly – all while under the watchful eye of Cartel Security. Partly it was the soldiers on shore leave, eager to spend their hard-earned pay and forget about the horrible things they had to do in the name of Republic or Imperial interests. Mostly, though, it was the outer avenues, the ones not patrolled by mercenaries in the employ of the Hutts, where the poor and downtrodden sold themselves in exchange for spice or food or a warm place to sleep. It was the sort of place that was easy to fall into and nigh on impossible to climb back out of, and Theron was keenly aware of all the times in his own life when one wrong twist or turn could have landed him there himself.

Theron sat at a small table outside Club Ufora, sipping a mediocre cup of flavoured caf while keeping his eye on his surroundings. For the most part the only people he saw were tourists and soldiers lining up to head into the club; security was doing a good job at keeping the spice addicts and beggars away. Every time the doors to the club opened to admit – or expel – one of its patrons the music would spill out into the promenade, loud enough that Theron could feel the beat in his teeth. No live bands tonight: the club had a guest DJ in, someone with a reputation for loud, fast beats that got the crowd dancing and kept the drinks flowing. His younger self would have been all over that – dancing, drinking and fucking were a great way to keep oneself entertained – but Theron didn’t have time for those kinds of idle pursuits. Besides, he was on the clock.

“Any sign of the target?” he murmured, pitching his voice low. The comm in his implant would pick up the sound of his voice regardless of his volume and would transmit it to the earpieces worn by the rest of his team. Likewise, their own responses would come through loud and clear, his implants filtering out the ambient noise around him. His team, situated in various positions throughout the Red Light Sector, didn’t have to deal with the noise coming out of Club Ufora or the crowd outside; Theron was the only one with cranial implants, therefore Theron was the only one who had to put up with the excess distractions.

_“Negative, sir.”_ The voice, deep and rich, had to belong to Itayo, the youngest member of the crew. He was the only one who called Theron ‘sir.’ The rest of them just called him Shan – when they were being polite. Thanks to the clusterfuck that had been Ziost most of them didn’t feel the need for good manners. They all knew he was in deep shit with the brass. _“Sector is clear.”_

_“There’s a Twi’lek who fits her height and general build,”_ came another voice. Anniatt, an older operative who had been a part of the Republic Strategic Information Services before Theron was even recruited. She was mostly retired now, taking this op on Nar Shaddaa because it gave her an excuse to visit with her sister’s family on the company dime. _“But she’s never posed as a Twi’lek before, so I don’t think it’s actually her.”_

_“First time for everything.”_ That was Kord, their Zabrak sniper. He was perched behind a neon billboard atop one of the nearby businesses, the member of the team whose position was closest to Theron. He would be the one who would get the order to take their target out, assuming he could get a clear line of sight without hitting anyone in the crowd.

Theron made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, his mic feed sensitive enough to pick it up and transmit it back to his crew. Kord was right, there was a first time for everything, but in the time the four of them had been on Nar Shaddaa – and before that, the teams who had done the research ahead of this op – their target had never once assumed a form with lekku or head-tresses or tentacles. She generally stuck to humans and near-human species: Mirialan, Chiss, Zabrak, species with similar body types and hair patterns. Theron suspected it was due to the limitations on her holo-projector, but until he actually saw her up close and personal he wouldn’t know for sure.

In the past few days their target had made consistent appearances throughout the Red Light Sector. One day she had been a pretty blonde human woman, the next she was a plain-faced Zabrak, the day after that a sultry Zeltros – assuming that these various appearances were all her, but the height and build remained consistent according to their sensors. Theron was positive she was staying in the area, but the regularity of her routine made him suspicious. It made no kriffing sense to him why the Red Blade – reportedly a former Cipher agent from Imperial Intelligence – would be so sloppy as to maintain a consistent schedule. She avoided holo-recorders and security cameras and patrols, and she always managed to ditch a tail whenever one of Theron’s crew tried following her, but she popped up in the same places and at the same times every day and that just seemed wildly inconsistent with what Theron knew of Imperial Intelligence in general and Ciphers in particular.

He’d tried complaining to Trant but it fell on deaf ears. The fact of the matter was, Theron wasn’t even supposed to _be_ on this op. He wasn’t supposed to be off Coruscant, period. Kriff, Saresh had wanted him burned and excommunicated, and Theron was pretty sure the only reason prison or a firing squad were off the table was because of who his parents were. (It wouldn’t do to execute the son of the Grandmaster of the Jedi Order and the Supreme Commander of the Republic Military, even if his relationship to Satele Shan and Jace Malcom wasn’t publicly acknowledged. Enough people knew who he was and that meant Chancellor Saresh’s hands were tied.) The Red Blade op was supposed to be proof that Theron could be a team player and work in the Republic’s best interests (as if that whole Revan debacle hadn’t proven that, but no, Ziost was too recent and too much of a disaster for anyone to care how nicely he had played with the other children on Yavin 4). Taking down a notorious Imperial agent – even one who had apparently gone rogue and independent, and now worked for herself instead of the Empire – would be a feather in Theron’s cap as well as proof positive that SIS Director Marcus Trant’s continued support of him was justified.

_The Red Blade._ Theron had memorized her file – what there was of it – and what he knew about her would barely be enough to fill a flimsi business card. A former Imperial agent known simply as Cipher Nine, she was Chiss, female, and had had a long history of service to the Empire before abruptly going rogue for reasons unknown to anyone in Republic or Imperial Intelligence. She had exposed terrorist cells, taken down at least one Sith lord (counting Revan, Theron’s own count was at three, so he was less impressed by that feat than most of his colleagues), and destroyed a secret society that had been pulling the strings behind both the Republic and the Empire for well over a millennium. She was something of a boogeyman to both factions, but from what little Theron could tell about her she had always worked to serve the greater galactic good rather than operating out of strictly Imperial concerns. Her loyalty had been to the Empire for the bulk of her career, but she had worked with an interest in preserving life, and that, in Theron’s experience, was a unique line in her resume. He wondered if Lana Beniko knew her, or knew of her – probably, Lana _was_ the head of Sith Intelligence – and what the Sith lord thought of her.

She was, however – despite her rogue status – an Imperial spy, and when she popped up on Nar Shaddaa Chancellor Saresh had seen it as an opportunity to rid the Republic of a potential threat. Technically speaking Saresh shouldn’t have any say in how the SIS handled their affairs, but the chancellor was a difficult woman to say no to and Trant was already in hot water with her. When the chancellor had pushed the issue, Trant had handed the assignment over to Theron. Theron strongly suspected he had been chosen for the job as much to piss Saresh off as to get himself back into the SIS’s good books.

The op didn’t sit right with Theron, however. The Red Blade was making herself into an easy target – assuming their various sightings were in fact all her; it was possible that some were just random women who happened to fit her general shape and size – and that just seemed out of character for a highly skilled operative. That, and honestly Theron wasn’t comfortable with the idea of killing her, which _was_ his mission objective. She had done bad things, yes, but overall he didn’t think she was a bad person (his own career could hardly be said to have been bloodless); she’d always worked to minimize casualties and limit fallout. He thought the Republic would be better served by bringing her in – she had supposedly left the Empire, after all, so it might theoretically be possible to turn her – rather than killing her. Besides that, assassinating a spy in the middle of the promenade was going to draw some unwanted attention. Saresh, who had no business telling the SIS how to manage their ops, wanted the Red Blade dead and saw the Hutt-controlled, politically-neutral Nar Shaddaa as the perfect place to do it, provided Theron and his team didn’t get caught in the act. Someone like the Red Blade was bound to have enemies, after all, and so long as no one actually saw Kord pull the trigger who was to say who had ultimately killed her?

So Theron complained and Trant shut him down, and at this point he was pretty well convinced his name had been legally changed to Theron _“you’re on thin fucking ice”_ Shan.

Not for the first time it occurred to Theron that the woman formerly known as Cipher Nine didn’t have to be the only Intelligence operative to go independent. And not for the first time Theron immediately discarded the idea. He might be tired of Saresh (and Trant, and governmental red tape in general) but he was still loyal to the Republic.

_“Humanoid redhead at your three o’clock, Shan,”_ said Anniatt, snapping him out of his reverie. Theron tilted his head subtly to the right, gazing through his eyelashes in the direction the older operative had indicated. Sure enough he could see a woman – a little above average height, slim build, vivid red hair – making her way through the crowd. She was alone and, unlike the majority of the people milling about outside Club Ufora, was dressed like a spacer instead of a clubber. Theron could see why she would have caught Anniatt’s attention: she was the right height and general build to be the Red Blade, and the fact that she was by herself and didn’t appear to be heading into Club Ufora fit the bill. The Red Blade didn’t seem to be the clubbing and cantinas type.

“Itayo, can you confirm it’s her?” Theron asked, hiding the movement of his lips behind his mug of caf. Itayo had a scanner that was supposed to be able to match the Red Blade’s known signatures – whatever that meant; SIS techs had been frustratingly vague on the subject – with their potential targets. The last thing they needed was to execute the wrong person, especially in such a public location. Saresh and the brass wanted the Red Blade dead; they didn’t want an intergalactic incident.

Silence over the comms: no response from Itayo. Theron set his cup on the table, keeping a surreptitious eye on the redhead as she moved past the lineup of people waiting to get into Ufora. He opened his mouth to call to Itayo again, but a burst of static crackling across the comms made him shut up and wince, feedback buzzing in his ears – and, as a result of his comms being a part of his implants, a dull ringing inside his head.

“Itayo, do you copy?” Theron said. He sat up straight, looking around. The redhead was moving away, oblivious to whatever he and his crew were doing. More silence. “Anniatt, do you have eyes on Itayo?” Nothing. “Kord?” _What the kriff is going on?_

_“Agent Shan?”_ The voice coming through Theron’s comm didn’t belong to any of his crew. It was low and feminine, with an accent he couldn’t quite place: not Imperial, not quite, but … close.

“I read you,” he replied, after a moment of stunned silence. Their comm channel was secure – his implants saw to that. The only way someone could be speaking to him through this channel was –

_“I have your sniper,”_ said the voice, and yes, that would explain it: she was speaking through Kord’s comm unit. _“He’s still alive. For now. I’d like to speak to you face to face. If you’d like your agent to continue living, you’ll come join us. I believe you know where he is?”_

“I do,” Theron said carefully.

_“Excellent. You have ten minutes before I put a blaster bolt through his skull. And please, we’re both professionals, so no funny business. I will not hesitate to kill him.”_

Theron pushed up to a standing position, mentally doing the math. Ten minutes to get from his position in front of Club Ufora to the rooftop billboard Kord had been hiding under. That was a lot of climbing. _Kriff._

_“Tick tock, Agent Shan.”_

Theron ran.

O o O o O

He made it to Kord’s rooftop sniper’s perch with a little less than two minutes to spare. The fact that he was huffing and puffing was … hardly worth mentioning. He was in excellent shape, but he’d just raced across a courtyard, climbed two flights of steep stairs and made it up an emergency fire escape before reaching the roof, and frankly that was a lot of cardio for one day.

Kord stood with his back to the billboard, his hands interlaced together behind his head. His eyes were very wide and when he caught sight of Theron it was impossible to mistake his expression of relief for anything else. Behind him, mostly hidden behind Kord’s taller figure, was a Chiss woman. It was difficult to determine her build, but she was a few inches shorter than Kord and slim enough to be able to keep herself from view. She held a blaster in one hand, but it was the blade at Kord’s throat that gave Theron pause.

“Agent Shan,” she said, tone polite, as if they were meeting for tea instead of - apparently - for hostage negotiations.

“The Red Blade, I presume?” Theron replied. He managed to get his heavy breathing under control, thank the Force, and didn’t sound like a winded octogenarian who’d just run a marathon on a Manaan swoop track. She inclined her head, acknowledging the introduction. She had dark blue hair pulled back in a sleek bun, and her eyes were a vivid, piercing red, with no differentiation between pupil, iris and sclera. It was disconcerting.

“You mind letting my agent go?” Theron asked, jerking his chin in Kord’s direction. Kord looked calm – he was a younger, newer agent, but he’d been well-trained, and he’d been pulled from Republic military on account of high test scores – but Theron could see the Zabrak’s hands shaking over his head. Assuming the Red Blade had kept him standing like that since before she’d contacted Theron, the other man’s arms would have to be getting tired.

“I’m comfortable like this,” the Red Blade replied. Her accent continued to puzzle him. There were Imperial notes to it, coupled with something more foreign. He wondered if she was from Csilla, if other Chiss sounded like her. She had a surprisingly low-pitched voice that was actually rather pleasant to listen to, present circumstances aside.

“Oh- _kaaay,”_ Theron said, drawing the word out and lacing it with heavy skepticism. “Have it your way.” As if he had a choice: she was the one with weapons trained on his teammate. “So, you wanted to chat?”

She ducked her head, hiding a smile. The blade at Kord’s throat didn’t waver.

“Indeed I did, Agent Shan.” Theron was really curious as to how she knew his name – it wasn’t like he was the only agent on the SIS roster, after all – but decided that question could wait. When she looked up her smile was gone, her expression cool. It was difficult to read her; Theron was too accustomed to relying on eye contact, and her strange all-red eyes told him nothing. “I couldn’t help but notice that you and your people have been following me around on Nar Shaddaa. I confess to a certain measure of curiosity. What have I done to pique your interest?”

Her voice, unlike her expression, was warm. That, coupled with her exotic accent, made Theron conclude that she would probably do an amazing job reading holonovels. Or, if he wanted to be a completely perverted asshole, he might have suggested she hire on as a smutty Hutt call centre girl. He wisely kept his mouth shut, however, because there was zero chance she would appreciate his commentary (most people didn’t), and he didn’t particularly want Kord to get his throat slit just because she didn’t like something Theron had said. Her hand with the blaster in it was tucked under Kord’s arm, the blaster trained on Theron. At this close range she couldn’t possibly miss, but Theron was honestly more concerned about Kord. He had dodged blaster fire before; it was a lot harder to survive a blade through the throat.

“Come on, Red Blade,” Theron said, laying on the charm even though nobody on that rooftop was going to buy it. “You’re an Imperial spy. Of _course_ we’re keeping tabs on you.”

“I’m not, actually,” she said. “Technically I’m retired.”

“Not according to our intel.” The reports Theron had showed that she was, in fact, quite active in the Intelligence community. She just wasn’t exclusively Imperial anymore, but he decided to leave that part out. Saresh wanted the Red Blade dead because of her history as Cipher Nine, not because she’d gone independent (and, he wondered, just what _did_ the Empire think of that?), but that would just muddy things and he wasn’t actually sure how much of her history the rest of his crew knew. They had been told they were going after an Imperial Intelligence operative; they might not be completely on board with going after an independent contractor. Even one with an impressive number of Republic kills under her belt.

Her eyes widened, and he realized abruptly that this indicated amusement rather than surprise. It was her smile – more of a smirk, really – that gave it away. “You should update your intel. We’re in neutral space here, Agent Shan. I’m retired. Do your Republic handlers really want to cause a diplomatic incident in Hutt territory by sending you after me?”

_Apparently, yeah,_ Theron thought, but kept it to himself. He didn’t know what the kriff Saresh had been thinking when she’d ordered him and his team after the Red Blade on Nar Shaddaa. He liked to think she trusted in his ability to be discreet and not make an intergalactic incident out of this, but he didn’t have a lot of faith in her opinion of him _or_ his skills. The rest of his team was solid, so he didn’t think the chancellor was using this as an opportunity to burn him, but it would make sense if she was: an Imperial agent, murdered in Hutt space by a Republic operative known for being a disciplinary problem? She could kill two birds with one stone, here, getting rid of an Imperial threat _and_ a pain-in-her-ass agent all at the same time.

Theron remained silent, and the Red Blade’s smile slid slowly off her face. The Chiss woman cocked her head to one side again, the knife at Kord’s throat almost casual, like she had forgotten it was even there, and then she seemed to give herself a small shake.

“Here’s what’s going to happen, Agent Shan,” she said, retreating slightly behind Kord. “I’m –”

Whatever she had been about to say was cut off by a single crack of gunfire. Theron jumped, startled, and instinctively dropped to his knees to present as small a target as possible while still remaining ready to jump into action. Both blaster pistols were out and in his hands before he had time to think about it. When he looked back to the Red Blade he saw Kord slumping to the ground, orange eyes staring sightlessly as his body fell. There was a splash of bright red blood across the Red Blade’s face, vivid against the Chiss woman’s blue skin.

She looked, Theron thought, completely surprised. It was an expression Intelligence operatives seldom got to practice: people always expected them to know everything, all the time. He ought to know.

Theron didn’t have time to consider what her surprise meant, because the next thing he knew someone – possibly many someones – was firing on them both, and that was when all hell broke loose.


	2. Shot to Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reluctant team-up between Theron and the Red Blade results in more questions than it answers.

Gunfire erupted across the rooftop.

Theron watched in mute horror as bullets riddled Kord’s body. His first instinct was to go to his agent, to try to protect the man from further damage, but Theron knew it was no use: Kord had been dead from the first shot. His second instinct propelled Theron into action, prompting him to dive for cover behind the electrical panel controlling the neon billboard. Sparks flew as metal slugs ricocheted off the durasteel plating that covered the panel. He peeked around the corner and saw that the Red Blade had likewise sought hiding, the top of her blue-haired head just barely visible above a duracrete slab.

At first Theron had assumed the shooters were aiming for the Red Blade – a natural assumption given that the first shots had hit Kord. Now, however, it was obvious that they were both being fired on indiscriminately, slugs raining down around both the duracrete slab and the billboard control panel.

A quick peek above the panel was all it took for Theron to pinpoint where the gunfire was coming from. He caught sight of the barrel of a slugthrower, marked it, and ducked back behind the panel. On his next peek he fired and had the momentary satisfaction of hearing a pained yell from a nearby rooftop. _There._

A muffled crack from nearby told Theron that the Red Blade was also firing on their enemies. Based on the sound he suspected she was using a blaster rifle of some sort, possibly a sniper rifle with a silencer. The silencer didn’t mute the shot entirely, but it dulled the noise so that it didn’t ring out across the promenade the way the rest of the gunfire did. By now there was little point in aiming for subtlety but knowing what he did of the Red Blade Theron was pretty sure the silencer was a part of the sniper rifle rather than something she had added at the last-minute to muffle her shots.

Theron leaned out far enough to catch sight of the Red Blade’s face. She was looking in his direction, red eyes wide but not wild. Her lips moved and he saw her mouth the words _Cover me._ He nodded.

Popping up from behind the electrical panel Theron brought both blaster pistols to bear as he opened fire on the enemy’s position. As expected his display drew immediate attention, and he had to duck back behind the panel as their enemies fired back, slugs slamming into the durasteel and duracrete around him. He heard a series of steady cracks coming from the Red Blade’s position, each shot rapidly but perfectly aimed and executed, and after a few heart-stopping seconds the gunfire ceased.

Theron waited, taking the time to check the gas levels on his pistols to make sure both were ready to fire again as needed. He could hear cries of alarm from down on the promenade and knew that their standoff had been noticed, but there was nothing he could do about that. He just hoped Hutt Cartel Security – or worse, innocent bystanders – didn’t come by to investigate. The former was unlikely provided nobody started firing on the promenade below, but there was no telling whether or not some random tourist and thrillseeker would be stupid enough to poke their nose into a gunfight in Hutt space.

“I think it’s clear.” The Red Blade’s voice, closer than Theron expected, startled him. He looked over and up and saw her standing next to him, out in the open. Her sniper rifle - a fancy matte-black model Kord would have cried to get his hands on - rested against one shoulder, her hand on the stock. No one fired on her, so he suspected her appraisal of the situation was correct. He stood up, legs shaky from holding his crouched position for so long.

The Red Blade looked him over, one dark blue eyebrow cocked, her face otherwise expressionless. Now that she was no longer hiding behind Kord Theron could see that she was dressed in black tactical gear, well-worn but in good repair; it was similar to what Theron himself might have worn on an op if he wasn’t undercover. She was a little shorter than him – he had no way of knowing whether that put her at average or above-average height for a Chiss female; her species was notoriously reticent about sharing biological data even with their Imperial allies, never mind with the Republic – with a slim, athletic build. He suspected their profile on her was a little off, but then it _had_ been difficult to pin down intel on a former Imperial Cipher. Especially one who, in her efforts to disguise her species, made frequent use of a holo-imager.

“I take it by your reaction that this wasn’t _your_ people firing on us,” she said. Her voice was low and husky, with a faint breathless note no doubt due to their heightened state of activity.

“No.” Theron was tight-lipped as he gazed down at Kord’s body, the Zabrak’s empty eyes staring at nothing. He’d been shot through the middle of his forehead, almost perfectly in line with his facial tattoos, and more bullets riddled his body. He had been wearing armour – everyone on Theron’s team had been wearing armour; even Theron’s spacer gear was heavily reinforced – but it hadn’t withstood the onslaught of high-velocity slugs. Most of their enemies used blasters; their armour wasn’t designed to withstand slugthrowers. _Kriff._ The young agent had deserved better than to be gunned down on a nameless rooftop on Nar Shaddaa.

Theron turned back to the Red Blade and saw that she was still watching him, her strange red-on-red eyes staring back at him, cool and watchful.

“No,” he said again, shaking his head. “My people wouldn’t have fired on their own, even if he was in the way.”

“Hmm.” It was a noncommittal sound, but Theron could tell she didn’t believe him. That said more about her side than his, so far as he was concerned, but it didn’t tell him anything new: he already knew Imperials would gladly go through their own people if it meant getting at a target. He’d seen it before, time and time again. It made sense that she would assume the Republic worked the same way, and he didn’t have the time or the inclination to educate her on how the SIS operated. It was none of her kriffing business anyway - let her assume the Republic was every bit as dog-eat-dog as the Empire. It never hurt to give your enemies the wrong impression of you.

He turned away, resisting the urge to argue the matter, and instead activated his comm. He needed to check in with the rest of his team, let them know Kord was dead and that his position was compromised. He should be trying to take the Red Blade down, but at the moment he was much more curious about who had been firing on them than he was about completing a mission objective that he had already been ambiguous about. Saresh and Trant could take him to task later. He already knew his future featured a lengthy turn as a desk-jockey and probable restriction to Coruscanti airspace.

“Shan to Anniatt, do you copy?” There was no point in being cagey about his teammates’ names; the Red Blade had already had access to their comms through Kord’s unit, and they’d all been pretty free in their speech before she’d contacted him. Silence. He tapped his comm again. “Itayo, copy?” When there was no response from either of his teammates Theron went back to glaring at the Red Blade. “Did you shut down our comms?”

She had moved to crouch beside Kord’s body, one gloved hand probing the holes in the dead man’s chest. Theron wanted to tell her to stop, to get the kriff away from his agent, but there was little point in it. Kord was dead; he didn’t give a fuck who was poking at his corpse. Besides, her actions didn’t come off as disrespectful to Theron. Rather he got the impression she was measuring wound depth and size, no doubt assessing bullet caliber and the other esoteric aspects of gunfire. Records indicated Cipher Nine had been a sniper; the rifle slung over her back seemed to prove it. Theron knew his way around blaster rifles but he didn’t have the kind of qualifications Kord had possessed, so while he could search the scene for details he knew he couldn’t hope to glean as much information as someone trained as a sniper might. The best he could hope for would be that the Red Blade would feel inclined to share.

“No,” she said calmly, not bothering to look up, her gaze – Theron thought, it was hard to tell without being able to see pupils – fixed on one of the bullet wounds. “I just borrowed your agent’s unit. I didn’t mess with the tech.”

Theron nodded, even though she wasn’t looking at him and couldn’t see his response. He was torn between two pressing needs: to ascertain the welfare of his two teammates and to investigate the area the gunfire had come from. The Red Blade herself had suddenly dropped to the bottom of his list of priorities. This op had already been shot to hell – _literally._ He could try taking the Red Blade down by himself – she was _right there_ – but the prospect of getting into close-quarters combat with the woman didn’t appeal to him. He was good, but he’d read her file: she was better. And he was alone, with no hope of backup, and with more enemies potentially waiting in the wings. Going after her now would be idiotic, and Theron Shan was a lot of things but he was not an idiot.

The Red Blade pushed herself to a standing position. For one brief moment Theron thought she winced, but her face was so smooth and serene it was hard to say for certain. She looked at him. “I’m going to go investigate the shooters’ location.”

It wasn’t an invitation, but Theron took it as such, and he hesitated. “I need to check on my agents.”

She shrugged and made for the fire escape that would lead to the next rooftop over. “Suit yourself.”

_Kriff._ “Wait.”

The Red Blade paused, turning enough to be able to glance at him over her shoulder. Once again she arched an eyebrow at him, her expression one of polite curiosity.

“We should stick together,” Theron said, forcing himself to look away from his dead agent’s body. “The shooters were firing on both of us. Whoever they are, they were trying to take us both out, so I guess that means we have some enemies in common.” He left unspoken the common adage, _The enemy of my enemy is my friend._ The Red Blade wasn’t his friend, enemies in common or not. She was his target. That they had a shared problem wouldn’t change that, but he could work around it. He was good at working around minor complications like who was on which side and who was actively trying to kill him versus who was temporarily working with him. She _had_ trusted him to cover her in a gunfight, after all. That meant _something_. And this way, at least, he could keep an eye on her – maybe bring her in (or take her down) once he had a better grasp on what the kriff was happening.

“Temporary truce, then?” She was smiling, practically smirking.

He returned the smile. It didn’t meet his eyes. “Something like that, yeah. Let’s go.”

O o O o O

There was blood and slug casings on the nearby rooftop, but no bodies. The blood was green, which narrowed down the list of species it could belong to, and there was enough of it that Theron suspected whoever it had belonged to was dead or dying. The shooters must have taken the bodies with them, which meant they had much more than one enemy and those enemies were well-organized.

The Red Blade was hunched over, examining the spent casings. There were a lot of them. Theron wasn’t particularly knowledgeable about slugthrowers (he preferred blaster pistols), so he focused on other details: the rooftop had a perfect line of sight on the billboard platform Kord had established as his sniper perch, as well as clear visuals to the stand of tables outside Club Ufora where Theron had been sitting. As upset as he was about Kord’s death, he was profoundly grateful that their assailants hadn’t opened fire on the line of patrons waiting to go into the club; the death toll would have been much, _much_ higher. There were, he found, no good angles from which to observe either Itayo or Anniatt, which suggested that Kord (or the Red Blade) and Theron were the targets. It was a little disconcerting to realize there had been a shooter – other than Kord – with an eye on Theron’s position the whole time. He felt tremendously exposed and it made his shoulder-blades itch.

If the Chiss woman felt the same way she gave no indication of it. Instead she was cool and professional, going over the site with keen red eyes that Theron was positive missed absolutely nothing. Theron was used to working alone – this op was an aberration forced upon him in order to prove he played well with others (which, frankly, he didn’t and Director Trant kriffing _knew_ that) – but as much as he didn’t trust the woman, he was glad to have a professional at his back. Not that he ever actually put his back to her, but the sentiment stood.

Letting one of the casings drop to the ground with a tiny clink the Red Blade straightened and spun a slow circle, pausing when she faced the sniper’s perch and then again when she was overlooking the front of Club Ufora. Theron guessed that she was making note of what he had already observed: that this position afforded an excellent view of both locations, and that it had clearly been set up with precisely that in mind. There were obvious signs that their enemies had been camped out on this rooftop for a while – probably as long as Theron and his crew had been in their positions – and all of the furniture and equipment had been moved around in order to make the best use of the space. The itching feeling increased. He hated feeling vulnerable.

“Have you had any luck raising your team?” the Red Blade asked, wiping her gloved hands off on her thighs. In the flickering neon light Theron could see blood and grime smeared across the front of her armour – Kord’s blood, most likely, as none of their assailants had gotten close enough to bleed on her.

“No.” He shook his head. He’d made several more attempts to reach Itayo and Anniatt, both on the way to their new location and since he’d gotten there. There had been nothing but static on the comms. Attempts to reach any of the local SIS posts had met with similar results. Either something was jamming his comm signal or someone had managed to take their units down entirely, and whatever it was, it had to have happened after the Red Blade had contacted him through Kord’s comm. She said she wasn’t responsible and Theron couldn’t think of any reason for her to lie aside from his own general mistrust of her.

The Red Blade nodded, unsurprised by Theron’s response. After a moment she cocked her head to one side and gave him what he thought might be an assessing gaze. When she spoke Theron detected a faint note of hesitation in her voice: “All right. What now, Agent Shan?”

He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well.” She glanced away, back out over the entrance to Club Ufora. He followed her gaze, noting that the crowd – which had largely scattered in the wake of random gunfire – had regrouped and the line to get into the club was as long as ever. Even the tourists were blasé on Nar Shaddaa. “I would like to continue investigating. It seems to me that the shooters were aiming for both of us, which suggests we have a common enemy.” Theron nodded and she continued, speaking carefully, “I think it would make sense for us to work together on this. What are your thoughts on the matter, Agent Shan?”

He thought it was dangerous the way she said his name, her exotic accent making the two simple words into a low, seductive purr. He didn’t think she was doing it deliberately, but he didn’t know her well enough to gauge and he couldn’t read her expressions. For all he knew she _was_ being deliberately seductive, trying to manipulate him into letting his guard down. He would have done the same thing if he’d thought for an instant she would buy into it. And that, again, suggested that the purr was unintentional, because if _she_ wouldn’t believe it of _him,_ he had to trust that she knew the same would hold true for him. They were both professionals. He’d read her file, what there was of it; he was certain Imperial Intelligence had their own file on him. Neither of them was the sort to fall for a honey-trap.

“I think you’re right,” he said slowly. He turned back towards her and found that she was staring at him again, red eyes on his face. “I think we should work together. For now.”

“For now,” she agreed, seemingly amused by the qualifier. She gestured around them, indicating the spent casings, spilled blood and obvious maintenance of the space. “I don’t think there’s much more we can glean from this without proper forensic equipment, and I’m afraid I’ve left all of that in my other trousers. Shall we try and find your missing agents?”

Theron shook his head. He didn’t know whether or not the Red Blade had known exactly where Itayo and Anniatt were supposed to have been hidden – for all he knew her finding Kord had been a lucky coincidence (for her, not so lucky for Kord) – and he wasn’t keen on exposing those locations to her. Besides that, if his two agents weren’t there he didn’t think he and the Red Blade would be able to learn anything more from those sites than they had this one. If Anniatt and Itayo were still alive and mobile they would know to meet back at their rendezvous point, one of their safehouses in the Red Light Sector. If they weren’t waiting there for Theron already _then_ he would consider investigating their hideouts.

“No,” he said, already heading for the ladder that would take them down to the next level and the fire escape there. “We’ll go to the rendezvous point. Even if they’re not there I should radio my supervisor and let them know the op’s been shot.”

“Rendezvous point?”

“Red Light Sector safehouse.” Theron caught the look on her face and let out a dark chuckle. “Don’t get too excited. We were planning on burning it after this op anyway. Plenty more where that came from.”

The Red Blade smiled, cold and hard. “I would expect nothing less, Agent Shan.”

O o O o O

The safehouse was dark and empty when Theron and the Red Blade arrived. Theron made no effort to disguise his motions when he keyed in the code on the security pad, knowing full well the Red Blade was watching his every move with unbridled curiosity and knowing just as well that he had no intentions of using this safehouse or these security codes ever again. Aside from its location and those codes – which were constantly being changed anyway – there was nothing about the safehouse that a rival Intelligence operative couldn’t be exposed to. He was fairly positive Imperial safehouses were much the same: plain, boring and utilitarian, only probably with more Imperial flags. The Red Light Sector safehouse was small and cramped and cluttered, and Theron and his team had been in each other’s pockets the entire time they’d been staying there. He’d stayed in better places - Manaan had been nice - but he’d also stayed in much worse. He suspected the Red Blade could say the same.

Despite her curiosity the Red Blade kept her hands to herself, although she did move over to a wall of shelving units filled top to bottom with datapads. Since she didn’t seem inclined to pick any of them up Theron didn’t feel it necessary to make sure she wasn’t poking through them; each datapad was locked and coded, and he knew she was good but it would take her a few seconds at least to slice her way past the security measures. Still, he was aware of her cataloguing their numbers and made a mental note to have the cleaners sweep this place once they were done there. Just because she wasn’t activating the datapads now didn’t mean she wouldn’t decide to come back later once all of this was over, and it was Theron’s job to ensure that those datapads were long gone before that “later” happened.

There was no indication that Itayo or Anniatt had come back to the safehouse, and their prolonged absence fed into Theron’s growing unease. He tried raising them again on the comms, and then on the safehouse radio units, but there was no response. The comms were still down and now he could tell that there was some sort of interference that was affecting the radio units as well. Whoever was after them, they didn’t want Theron to be able to get in contact with any of his people, including his supervisors and the local Nar Shaddaa SIS listening posts. He wasn’t completely out of options, however: he had more than enough technical know-how to adjust the feeds on the comm systems, so long as the Red Blade wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere. It meant he’d have to get down on his hands and knees and crawl under the equipment panel, but provided she didn’t intend to use this opportunity to start taking potshots at him – and he didn’t _think_ she was planning on killing him right now, given that she’d certainly had plenty of opportunities to try before this exact moment – and could refrain from rifling through their gear, it shouldn’t be too big of an issue.

He cleared his throat, catching her attention, and gestured towards the panels. “I’m gonna make some adjustments. You okay to hang around for a bit?”

The Red Blade nodded slowly and distractedly, her interest still largely on the datapads. She spared a brief glance in his direction. “Do you think it will help?”

“Maybe?” Theron didn’t know what, exactly, was wrong with the comms, so there was no way to know for certain whether or not he could sort out a workaround, but he’d worked with malfunctioning tech before. The SIS was frequently underfunded, government finances going towards weapons development and recruitment rather than intelligence as was so often the case in wartime, and Theron had had to make do many times in the past. Besides, he’d had a lifetime of learning to use the resources at hand in order to make up for deficiencies. Teenage runaways - if that’s what he could be called, despite the fact that his transience had been through no choice of his own - tended towards self-reliance. “At the very least I want to be able to give my superiors a sitrep, and it’s not like I’m about to take _you_ into a Republic Intelligence base.”

“Really? Such a shame.” He could hear the amusement in her voice, and when he looked over at her he saw that the Red Blade was smiling faintly. “I’m very good with people.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you are,” Theron said, half under his breath. She heard him anyway and chuckled, and he discovered that it was a surprisingly alluring sound. He’d always been a bit of an adrenaline junkie, so of _course_ he found the intergalactic rogue agent attractive. He’d always been drawn toward the bad boys and girls, and the ex-Imperial Intelligence operative formerly known as Cipher Nine certainly qualified as such.

He heard her shift away from the shelves, moving around restlessly. After a moment she cleared her throat and said, sounding slightly embarrassed, “I don’t suppose there’s a refresher in here that I might use?”

Theron considered her question and realized that she’d been antsy for some time now. He’d originally chalked it up to nerves – as calm and cool as she was, she had to be agitated about coming under fire from unknown assailants, not to mention being alone with an SIS operative in a Republic safehouse – but now that he realized she simply needed to use the ‘fresher he had to repress a chuckle of his own. The idea of the Red Blade being so … well, _human_ (Chiss, whatever) as to have need of the facilities was strangely endearing. He imagined it must be like what other people felt when discovering that Jedi snored or drooled in their sleep, that larger-than-life image knocked down a few pegs.

Theron directed her towards the ‘fresher – a small unit tucked in behind a nondescript closed door, easy to miss in the dim lighting of the safehouse – before dropping to his hands and knees to get under the equipment panel. He heard the ‘fresher door close with a soft click that was soon followed by the sound of running water.

The equipment panel that supported their comm units, backup radios and databanks was completely fried. Penlight in mouth, Theron flipped over onto his back to stare up at the unblinking lights and scorched lines of wiring, uncertain how he was going to fix this or if fixing it would even be possible. His first thought when the comms had gone down was that someone had left off a localized EMP somewhere in the vicinity, but that would have taken out his implants as well and he wasn’t having any problems with those. (Thank goodness.) Now, looking at the damaged wiring and burnt circuitry, he realized the damage was much more direct and deliberate, and that he had no idea how it had been caused. Anniatt was their tech person; she would have had a much better idea of what she was looking at. Theron was relatively skilled – you had to be if you wanted to get anything done in the field; field tech support was a joke – but he could see that this was well beyond his skills.

He heard the scuff of boots on the floor near where he worked. Spitting out the penlight, he started to scoot out from under the equipment panel to give the Red Blade the bad news. That was when he realized that he hadn’t heard the water shut off in the ‘fresher or the ‘fresher door open and close again.

Theron’s hand dropped down to the grip of his blaster just as something hard jabbed into his side. He looked down to see the business end of a shock-stick prodding into his ribs. There was a clicking noise that sounded too-loud in the close, confined space.

Theron’s world exploded into fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've watched _Star Wars Rebels_ (not the final season, though, so no spoilers please!) and have recently started watching _Hannibal_ (again I'm only about two episodes in). As a result in my head the Red Blade's accent is very similar to that of Thrawn and Hannibal, since their actors are brothers and that's sort of become my default "Chiss" accent, which I find ridiculously sexy (and apparently so does Theron Shan).


	3. Shrapnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Information is acquired through a variety of means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for suicide, description of injuries (and their treatment)

Theron came back to himself to the sounds of a fight.

He was sprawled on his back half under the equipment panel, his head and shoulders exposed, and every muscle in his body felt as though it was locked in spasms. He gasped, forcing himself to push past the pain, and when he opened his eyes there was a Duros lying dead less than a few feet away from him. The man’s wide red eyes were open and staring, their dull emptiness reminding Theron uncomfortably of Kord.

Once Theron’s body was back under his control – everything hurt, like he’d just finished a very, _very_ heavy workout, but he didn’t think anything was actually _damaged_ – he managed to push himself over onto his hands and knees. He would have liked to stay that way for a few minutes, to give himself time to catch his breath and assess his condition, but with consciousness came the awareness that the Red Blade was locked into a fight with a rather large human male and judging by the fact that the man’s hands were wrapped around her slender blue throat Theron didn’t think she was winning.

Theron couldn’t quite get his twitching fingers to curl around the grip of his blaster pistol, but in these close quarters he’d be just as likely to hit the Chiss as he was her enemy and he was fairly confident she wouldn’t appreciate him shooting her. Instead he snatched up the closest thing to hand – the spanner he’d been using to work on the comm system – and whipped it. His aim wasn’t as good as it usually was but he managed to wing the human in the shoulder with enough force to distract him, and the Red Blade took advantage of that momentary diversion, her knee jamming up between the man’s legs so hard Theron was pretty sure _he_ felt it. The man released his grip on her throat and doubled over, making an animalistic keening noise that was cut short when the Red Blade’s elbow connected solidly with his temple. He dropped to the ground, stunned, and she brought the heel of her boot down on his head. He stopped moving.

The Red Blade hunched over, hands on her knees, panting hard. Some of her hair had come loose from the tight bun it had been pulled back in, and a fall of dark blue strands obscured her face. Theron sucked in a few deep breaths, relieved to discover his body no longer felt like he was holding onto a live wire, and slowly, carefully pushed himself to his feet. The world seemed to spin in a rather alarming fashion but closing his eyes and waiting for the dizziness to pass worked to push him through it. When he opened his eyes again the horizon had righted itself and the Red Blade had straightened up, blinking at him.

“Thank you,” she said solemnly, “for the assist.” Her voice was a bit ragged but she sounded remarkably calm for a woman who’d narrowly avoided being throttled to death.

“No problem.” Theron’s own voice was just as hoarse, if not worse, and he noticed that his throat was sore. He didn’t remember screaming but suspected that he probably had. He’d been hit with a shock-stick before but not one like that; their assailants must have used modified equipment. He could honestly say he wasn’t a fan.

Now that the immediate threat had passed Theron looked around the safehouse, taking in the damage. In addition to the dead Duros and the unconscious-possibly-dead human there was another Duros – this one female – who was likely also dead and a badly-injured Rodian propped up against the wall beside the ‘fresher door. The Rodian was alive and conscious but, judging from the expression on her face, she was clearly wishing otherwise.

Theron had known the Red Blade was good. He had seen after-action reports on sightings of her in the field, and the SIS operatives who had come across her had been effusive in their comments on her skills and proficiencies. Those who survived – and, surprisingly, that number was remarkably high; the former Cipher agent didn’t appear to go out of her way to kill Republic spies – had nothing but praise for her combat abilities. But this … She had taken down four opponents in the incredibly short amount of time Theron knew he had been unconscious, and she was barely out of breath. It was pretty impressive.

“We can’t stay here,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily. “Gather up what supplies you can while I have a little chat with our friend, here.” She gestured towards the Rodian, who was staring up at the Red Blade with huge round eyes.

Theron felt a vague tickle of unease as the Red Blade hunched down in front of the Rodian, but he quickly squashed it. The Chiss woman didn’t have a reputation for engaging in over-the-top brutality, and Theron himself had participated in enough interrogations that he would feel somewhat hypocritical protesting the need for one now. They needed information; this Rodian had it, and the Red Blade - if her reputation was anything to go by - had the skills to acquire it.

As much as he disliked leaving the information-gathering to someone else the Red Blade had been very clear in her instructions, and he knew the safehouse far better than she did and knew where his team’s gear and supplies were kept. While she hunkered down to “chat” with the Rodian he quickly went through the safehouse in search of anything they could carry that might be useful. He had no idea where the kriff the two of them were going to go, but the SIS safehouse was compromised so they obviously couldn’t stay there. Hopefully the Red Blade had somewhere safe they could go, at least for the short term; he didn’t want to have to burn more safehouses by bringing her there. He could just imagine how ‘shared the location of multiple SIS safehouses with a known Imperial spy’ would look on his report; Trant would eat him for breakfast if Saresh didn’t get to him first.

Spare weapons and ammo were stored in a locked crate behind Itayo’s cot. Theron tried not to think about what had become of the other man while he dug through the crate, tossing a couple of blaster pistols into a duffel for ease of carry. He hoped Itayo and Anniatt were still alive but he was too much of a realist to believe they were: if they were alive they would have made their way to the safehouse or found some other way to get in contact with Theron by now. That someone had apparently taken out Theron’s entire team all at the same time suggested their enemies were numerous and well-organized, and Theron still had no kriffing clue who they were. It rankled him, especially when coupled with the knowledge that someone had compromised their safehouse as well. Logic - and years of experience against the Empire - warned him that this was some kind of Imperial setup, and that he had to be crazy to be teaming up with an Imperial spy, no matter her claims of retirement from the service.

And yet she had come to his rescue when the Duros had attacked him. Of course, she might have simply been trying to escape on her own and his timely intervention - saving her life in the process - had prevented that. He had no way of knowing for sure. Trust was not something that came easily to him. Or, he suspected, to her.

He ducked into the ‘fresher where the medical supplies were stashed. The water was still running in the sink; he absentmindedly shut it off before turning to the boxes stacked beside the shower stall. There was a smear of blood on the fastener of the topmost box that looked relatively fresh and was still tacky to the touch. Theron took a quick look around the ‘fresher and saw that yes, there were more drops of blood on the floor and on the lip of the sink. Not a lot of blood, but in his expert opinion anything more than “no blood whatsoever” was arguably too much blood.

Intending to confront the Red Blade Theron raced out of the ‘fresher in time to see the Rodian twitching and jerking on the floor, with the Chiss standing over her and cursing under her breath in a language Theron didn’t recognize. After only a few seconds the Rodian was dead, body going limp and thick foam at her lips.

“You killed her,” Theron said, voice dull. His throat ached. “I thought you were supposed to be interrogating her.”

“She killed herself,” the Red Blade corrected him, standing up and moving away. Her expression, before she schooled her features back into their regular smooth planes, was one of frustration. She turned away from the dead Rodian but gestured towards the corpse with a vague hand. “She had a poison capsule in her mouth. I didn’t catch it until it was too late and she’d already bitten down. _Ktah!”_ Theron didn’t recognize the word, but the way it was hissed out – and the frustration in the Red Blade’s voice – suggested that it was a curse.

“Did you get anything out of her?”

“No.” This time the frustration was even more in evidence, and the Chiss turned back to her fallen quarry and began tugging at the dead woman’s clothing, tearing open her jacket and then the shirt underneath. Theron watched in mild confusion at the Red Blade yanked the shirt aside, exposing first one, then the other armpit. He moved in closer, curious as to what she was looking for, and then he saw it: there, in the Rodian’s armpit, was a strange black tattoo.

“Is that …?”

“Exchange guild tattoo,” the Red Blade confirmed, releasing the woman’s clothing and sinking back on her haunches. She motioned halfheartedly towards the other bodies. “We should search them all. One might be coincidence, but if they’re all marked …”

Theron nodded and moved towards the dead human, the closest body at hand. The man had Black Sun tattoos on his face but that didn’t necessarily mean anything; he could have been a member of both the Black Suns and the Exchange’s assassin’s guild. He quickly and efficiently stripped the man’s upper-body armour, and sure enough there in the human’s armpit was a tattoo similar to the one the Rodian sported. The Exchange marked all their specialists: assassins, expert slicers, top-tier thieves. Theron wasn’t well-versed in all the different marks - he didn’t have a lot of field experience with intergalactic gangs and criminal organizations, since the majority of the time he dealt with threats from the Empire - but he recognized the sign of an assassin easily enough. Once stripped Theron saw that the Duros male had a similar tattoo; the Duros female, however, did not. He didn’t know what that meant.

“Did someone put out a hit on you? On me?” he asked, his gaze fixated on the blood around the Duros female’s head. Her throat had been slashed open, messy but efficient. Her blood, Theron noted, was green. His mind flashed back to the green blood on the rooftop where the enemy snipers had hidden, and it occurred to him that both Duros and Rodians had green blood. Chiss and human bled red.

He remembered the drops of red blood in the ‘fresher, and turned to the Red Blade. She was standing in the middle of the safehouse, staring down at the Rodian’s body. Her face was back to being expressionless.

“Are you hurt?” Theron asked, trying and failing to keep the note of accusation out of his voice. She turned towards him, startled.

“What?”

He waved a hand in the direction of the refresher. “I found blood. Are you hurt?”

The Red Blade had the grace to look somewhat chagrined. Theron suspected it was an act; he, too, could project whatever emotion or expression he wanted. It came with the job.

“I might have gotten a little bit …” She hesitated, turning away for a second before looking back at him. “… shot.”

“You were shot.” Theron hadn’t heard any blaster fire during the … _“Kriff,_ are you saying you were shot _on the rooftop?_ That was hours ago! You should’ve said something!”

Her expression instantly locked down, those strange red eyes growing hard as tight lines formed at her mouth. “I’m not in the habit of advertising my weaknesses, Agent Shan. Besides, what were my options? It’s not as though I regularly carry around a first aid kit. Should we have stopped at one of the Red Light Sector med centres?”

Theron shook his head, gritting his teeth in frustration. No, obviously they couldn’t have gone to a med centre: they didn’t know who was after them and it wasn’t as though they could trust that Hutt-aligned doctors wouldn’t take the opportunity to sell the two of them out to their unknown enemies. Even the sectors on Nar Shaddaa that were nominally considered Republic or Imperial spaces couldn’t be seen as entirely secure, not when they didn’t know who their enemies were. All it would take would be for someone to tip the wrong person off or send the wrong kind of message, and he and the Red Blade would be captured or dead. Theron didn’t carry around medkits, either, or at least he hadn’t been carrying any first aid supplies around on this op. Itayo had been handling the task of medic; their medical supplies would have been with him. Wherever he was.

Stars, he hadn’t even noticed her limping. Had she been limping? Theron didn’t think so. She’d given no indication that she was hurt. He stared at her now, searching for evidence that she was injured, and still saw nothing. No – wait, Theron could see something white peeking through a hole in the left leg of her tactical gear, high up on her upper thigh. The white stood out in stark contrast to her black armour and dark blue skin. He was pretty sure that hadn’t been there before – he felt confident he would have noticed it – and thought back to the blood smeared on the medkit in the ‘fresher, realizing she must have gone through their medical supplies in search of bandaging.

Her next words confirmed his suspicions: “I was trying to patch myself up when I heard you cry out.”

“How bad is it?”

The Red Blade tilted her head to one side, looking away. “We should bring all the medical supplies with us,” she replied evasively.

_Great,_ Theron thought. That sounded bad, and the fact that she wasn’t being upfront about the state of her health sounded even worse. Were all Imperial spies this kriffing cagey, or was Theron just lucky? Instead of commenting, however, Theron just shook his head and went back to the ‘fresher to finish loading up their gear. If she wanted to be tight-lipped about her own physical welfare then far be it from him to act as though he gave a shit. It wasn’t like _he_ was the one who had been shot. From within the tiny room he called out, “Any suggestions as to where we should go? Do you have a safehouse here?”

“No to the second question, but I know of a flophouse we can stay at where they won’t ask too many questions.” The Red Blade’s voice, still somewhat rough but improving faster than Theron’s own – how hard had he been screaming? He couldn’t remember anything after the first jolt from the shock-stick – carried through from the main room. “I wouldn’t say it’s secure, exactly, but people tend to mind their own business there.”

_Fantastic._ Theron could probably look forward to acquiring some new and exotic kind of lice. The mere suggestion made his skin crawl.

Once their supplies were loaded up the two of them headed for the door. Theron spared one last worried glance towards the shelves of datapads, then down at the bodies on the floor. He needed to get in contact with the SIS; they would need to send somebody to clear this place out ASAP. He hated the thought of leaving so much intel behind where just anyone could find it, but he didn’t have the means - or the time - to lug it all around with him until he could get it someplace safe. Slinging two duffel bags over his shoulder – one weighed down with weapons, ammo and tech gear, the other filled with all the medical supplies he could cram into it – he stepped out into the promenade. He was half-expecting an ambush, muscles tensing in preparation for violence, but to his surprise the area was clear.

“Are you injured?” the Red Blade asked once they were outside.

He turned to her, surprised to discover that the answer to that question was ‘no.’ His body ached, but it felt more like he’d run a few marathons back to back despite the fact that his memories of what it had _felt_ like to be hit by the shock-stick were incredibly painful and vivid. The shock-stick had clearly been modified to cause maximum pain but it hadn’t left any actual injuries. He couldn’t decide if he found the idea horrifying or practical. A bit of both, probably, which suggested he’d been working with the SIS for too long. He was pleased that he’d thought to toss the weapon into one of their bags, at least; it might come in handy later.

“I’m fine,” he said tersely. “We should go.”

She nodded, turning away to scan their surroundings before quickly glancing back at him. “I don’t suppose you happen to have a speeder lying around here somewhere?”

“No, why?”

The Red Blade gestured down at her leg. Theron could see bright spots of blood starting to soak through the bandage around her thigh. Her voice, when she spoke, was slightly apologetic as she said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to walk very far.”

Theron had learned how to hotwire a speeder long before he’d ever been recruited into the SIS. Misspent youth and all that. They found a speeder lying around unattended and he made short work of the controls, getting it up and running within seconds while the Red Blade loaded their supplies into the trunk compartment. The two of them had a brief standoff over who would drive before a sudden – and clearly unexpected, if her reaction was anything to go by – wave of dizziness left the Red Blade staggered. He helped her up onto the back of the seat before settling down in front of her, her arms wrapped loosely around his waist.

“Don’t pass out,” he told her, revving the engine. The speeder was nothing to write home about, just a low-end model that its owner probably couldn’t afford to miss (he’d feel badly about that later), but it would get them from Point A to Point B well enough. “I need you for directions.”

“Chiss don’t pass out,” the Red Blade replied solemnly, but she rested her forehead between Theron’s shoulder blades, body going lax behind him. She tightened her grip around his waist and added, almost too quietly for him to hear over the roar of the speeder’s engine, “Just shut up and drive.”

By the time they got to the flophouse – a filthy, dingy affair on the outskirts of the Red Light Sector, in one of the poorer quarters – the Red Blade was obviously flagging. It seemed to require a significant amount of effort for her to climb off the back of the speeder, even with Theron’s assistance, and he had to wrap one arm around her waist in order to help her inside. The limp she hadn’t shown before was very much in evidence now as she had almost no ability to put any weight on her left leg. She was pale and sweating, and had to grit her teeth against crying out when an unexpected stumble jostled her injury.

The Sullustan behind the counter eyed them both warily, her gaze fixing on the Red Blade. “Is she sick?”

Theron shot the Red Blade a quick glance, taking in her sweaty, dishevelled appearance, and shrugged. “She’s Chiss. They all look like that.” The Red Blade huffed out a sound that might have been a laugh while the Sullustan regarded them both with intense suspicion before grudgingly handing over a keycard.

Their rented room was ridiculously tiny and squalid for the absurd amount of credits they were paying, and Theron had to remind himself that they were paying for discretion rather than four-star amenities. Still, the place wasn’t going to be recommended on any travel guides, that was for certain. The room was barely big enough for a bed – which was essentially just a couple of mattresses stacked on the floor – and an end table, with a chair jammed in at the foot of the bed for good measure. There was a small ‘fresher off to one side and if it was any bigger than his very small bedroom closet back on Coruscant Theron would eat his jacket. Theron eyed the stained mattress with obvious displeasure, thoughts of lice, bedbugs and other creepy-crawlies foremost in his mind. He hoped they weren’t planning on staying there for long.

The Red Blade stumbled into the room, pushing past Theron to all but collapse onto the mattress. (Theron half-expected a sudden flurry of vermin to rise up and scurry away from the bed, but to his great relief that didn’t happen although the mattress did give a rather alarming creak at the weight of the woman on top of it.) She sat up and began removing her armoured jacket, fingers slow and movements clumsy. After a few seconds of silent observation Theron knelt to help her, speeding up the process. She wore a cortosis-weave body glove beneath her armour, soaked through with sweat, and she carefully peeled it away to reveal a plain black tank top underneath. Then, with assistance from Theron, she stood again and unbuckled her belt and pants. The bandage around her left thigh was soaked with blood, and drawing it away from her skin, along with the body glove, proved tricky. By the time she was down to her underwear – utilitarian black panties – she was shaking and sweating.

There was no such thing as body modesty when it came to Intelligence operatives, and Theron didn’t waste time looking her over in spite of his own curiosity. He couldn’t help but notice that she was slim and fit, with excellent muscle definition on her arms, abs and thighs, but that interest was secondary to the wound on her thigh, which immediately drew his attention. With the bandage removed he could see the full extent of the damage, and while Theron was by no means a doctor he had enough combat medicine training to know that the wound did not look good.

The Red Blade’s armour had clearly been designed with blaster fire and lightsabers in mind, not solid metal slugthrower ballistics, and as a result it had not held up against the solid slug projectile. The bullet had gone through the dense outer-layer, shattering the plasteel plating before slamming into the meat of her upper thigh. The cortosis had shredded, and there were bits of plasteel and cortosis embedded in the wound, along with what Theron had to assume was the actual bullet itself. The resulting mess was bloody and no doubt incredibly painful, and Theron suspected the only reason the slug hadn’t taken her leg off entirely was because it had likely gone through Kord’s body first. No wonder she hadn’t been able to do anything more than slap a bandage on it back at the safehouse.

“Lie back down,” Theron instructed, motioning with one hand. “I need to clean this and get the shrapnel out.”

She nodded curtly, squeezing both eyes shut, and he stood, ducking into the ‘fresher. As expected there was barely enough room to turn around in, and when he turned the water on in the sink it ran red with rust. He blinked a few times, wondering why that should surprise him, then headed back out into their room to rummage around in his duffel bags until he found some bottled water. He splashed the water over the Red Blade’s wound, clearing the blood away so that he could get a better look. It still looked awful. Finding some antiseptic and a set of tweezers, Theron set those aside before producing an assortment of vials and matching injectors.

“Here,” he said, holding up one of the vials to show it to her. It was a sedative; the Red Blade’s wound was nasty and it would be a thousand times easier to clean if he didn’t have to worry about her thrashing around on him. There was also the small part of him that didn’t particularly relish the thought of causing her pain, opposite sides of the ideological fence or not.

She blinked at the vial, then shook her head, strands of blue hair plastered to her sweaty forehead.

“No.” Her fingers curled around his wrist, preventing him from fitting the vial into the injector. “No drugs.”

Theron frowned, temper rising. “Look, Blade, you don’t have to prove how tough you are. I already know you’re a badass.”

The Red Blade shook her head again, and to Theron’s surprise the expression on her face, which he would have expected to be angry or defiant, was instead strangely vulnerable, eyes far too large and wide. Her hand remained clenched around his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong.

“I don’t … I don’t like not being inside my own head.” Her voice was soft and slightly tremulous. He studied her face, well aware that she could be faking this sudden display of vulnerability, but he detected no hint of dishonesty there. He knew she was good – kriff, he could fake this, if he had to – but he thought she was being honest with him. It was something he could understand, too: he didn’t like the way drugs made him feel, either, the way kolto and myocaine and other painkillers and sedatives left him feeling slightly loopy and like he wasn’t in control of himself.

“All right.” Theron set the vial and injector aside, swallowing heavily as he looked down at the wound. “Well, then, this is gonna suck.”

She just nodded at him, releasing her hold on his wrist to sag back against the mattress. He thought maybe she would close her eyes and try to relax, but instead he found himself the focus of that too-intense red gaze. Theron swallowed again and made a show of putting on sterile synthskin gloves, taking that time to calm his nerves. Once he was positive his hands would remain steady he picked up the tweezers and bent his head towards the terrible wound in the Red Blade’s thigh.

He was amazed all over again by the fact that she had managed to hide her injury for so long. Wracking his memory for any hint that something had been wrong, the best he could come up with was a couple of flinches and grimaces that had passed her face and then been hidden. At the time he had noticed her responses but had written it off to other circumstances, responses to other stimuli, but now that he knew better he could see that she had been in pain long before admitting the injury to him. He wondered if Chiss were simply tougher than humans; he could probably have disguised himself, under similar circumstances, but he had the benefits of Jedi training and pain-dampening implants. Of course for all he knew she was utilizing some kind of Imperial Intelligence meditation technique to mask her pain, or maybe the Chiss had a naturally higher pain threshold. He simply didn’t know enough about her, the Chiss or Imps in general to tell for sure.

The process of removing all the tiny, jagged pieces of plasteel from the Red Blade’s open wound was painstakingly slow and precise. The last thing Theron wanted to do was to stitch the injury back up only to have discovered he’d left something inside. Contrary to her earlier assertion Theron discovered that Chiss did, indeed, pass out, and when the Red Blade finally slumped into unconsciousness Theron found it much easier to get the job done without having her watchful gaze on him at all times. Once she was out cold he moved much more quickly, tweezing the shrapnel out of the wound and then finally managing to snag the bullet itself. He set all the shrapnel aside on a roll of folded-up napkins from the ‘fresher; for all he knew she would want to count or catalogue the pieces. When he was finally sure the wound was completely clean he rinsed it with antiseptic and stitched it closed. His stitches weren’t the straightest or neatest but he managed to get the job done, finishing it off with a liberal smear of kolto gel and a very tidy bit of bandaging. He had some prophylactic antibiotics to give her when she woke up, just to be on the safe side.

Theron checked the Red Blade’s pulse, finding it a bit fast but definitely steady and strong. He had no way of knowing what the normal heartrate was for Chiss, so the best he could do was to hope she would wake up soon. He set the soiled wipes and bundle of napkin-wrapped shrapnel aside, then stood and headed back into the ‘fresher to wash his hands.

When he came back out the Red Blade was stirring, but not yet fully conscious. He spent a few minutes tidying up their medical supplies and keeping one eye on her before realizing that she had apparently fallen into the grips of a particularly strong and nasty nightmare. She was tossing and turning, hands clenching and unclenching into fists at her sides, and Theron was genuinely concerned that she might hurt herself. He moved towards her, reaching for her shoulder to shake her awake.

Red eyes flashed open and Theron managed to dodge the fist that was aimed directly at his face, catching her wrist before she could take another swing at him.

“Hey!” he said sharply, when she tried to yank loose. “It’s me! I’m not gonna hurt you!”

She flinched back, violently, all but tugging him down onto her. He managed to pull away, releasing her, and sat back on his haunches, watching as she struggled to get her breathing back under control.

“What happened?” she asked him, still gulping in great big breaths.

“You passed out,” he answered, standing up again to give her some space. There wasn’t a lot of space to give; their room really was impossibly tiny.

“Chiss don’t pass out.” Her voice was shaky, her breathing still too fast.

“Fine,” Theron snapped, “You took a power nap.” When he turned to look at her he saw that she was studying him closely, an unguarded expression of bewilderment on her face. For some reason her confusion bothered him. “What? What are you looking at?”

“I’m just … surprised.” She spoke slowly, carefully, her eyes never leaving his face. “I’m not used to being … in a position of weakness and not having someone take advantage of that.”

Theron stiffened, annoyance giving way to anger that she would even suggest such a thing. His anger – visibly displayed and far too close to the surface for him to disguise – made her flinch again, which only served to anger him further. What the kriff kind of person did she take him for? More, what the kriff kind of people did she normally deal with? Theron knew the Empire was fucked up, but seriously – what the hell?

“Yeah, well, you don’t know me,” he said tersely. “You don’t know anything about me.”

She snorted, relaxing a little. “I know more than you think, Agent Shan. Former Intelligence, remember?”

He glared at her and watched as she forced herself to relax some more, her hands gently tracing the contours of the bandage around her thigh. He wanted to snap at her to leave it alone, but he didn’t want to see her flinch again. They needed to work together. They couldn’t do that if she was afraid of him.

“I know exactly who you are, Theron Shan,” she said, and he startled at hearing his full name in her strangely pleasant accent. She continued, voice soft, “Agent Theron Shan, of the Republic Strategic Information Services, son of Satele Shan, Grandmaster of the Jedi Order. You were on Yavin 4 – with Darth Nox. He saw you and Satele Shan together and drew his own conclusions long before you admitted anything to him – which, honestly? Why did you even _do_ that? Nox can’t keep a secret to save his life.”

Theron grimaced, unable to explain himself or why he had felt compelled to be honest with the Sith lord. He remembered being annoyed by his mother, by her quiet assumption of ownership over him without claiming the relationship between them, and Darth Nox had been a convenient outlet. The man had listened, quietly and without judgment, as Theron had complained about the way Satele referred to him as ‘her agent’ instead of as her son. He knew he should’ve kept his mouth shut but after three days of torture at the hands of the Revanites it had felt good to confess to _something._ He hadn’t broken for Revan and it had been safer to let himself break, just a little bit, for Nox. And Nox, for all his faults, had been a good listener. Crazy and terrifying, yes, but strangely compassionate, for a member of the Dark Council.

“In fairness, Nox had already met your mother long before the whole Revan debacle; he likely drew the connection between the two of you the moment he first lay eyes on you,” the Red Blade continued, heedless of Theron’s inner turmoil. She kept her voice pitched low, soft; she didn’t need to be loud to be audible in the close confines of their room. “You do take after her somewhat. It’s the eyes, I think. Different colours, but the same general shape. In any event, Nox included his conclusions about you in his report to Dromund Kaas after Revan was dead.”

“Oh. Wonderful.” Theron didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. Likely the entire Dark Council and all of Sith Intelligence knew his connection Satele Shan. Fantastic. He should’ve kept his kriffing mouth shut.

The Red Blade was silent for a moment before saying quietly, “If it’s any consolation, we’ve no idea who your father is. That secret has been well kept.”

Theron snorted. “Yeah, well, drop me a line if you ever figure it out. I’m a bit curious myself.”

She studied him, red eyes unblinking, then slowly smiled. “Very good, Agent Shan. I almost believed you there for a moment.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Theron lied.

“Please, Agent Shan. We’re both professionals. You’re an excellent liar, I’m honestly quite impressed, but I don’t believe for a second that you don’t know who your father is.” She bit her lower lip, chewing at it, then said so softly he almost missed her, “Kthira’kes’ina.”

“I don’t … What?”

“Kthira’kes’ina. It’s my name. My real name, none of that Red Blade or Cipher Nine nonsense. I know something about you that you would rather I didn’t, now you know something about me that I would rather you didn’t. Fair?”

“Fair.” Theron was familiar with the concept of equivalent exchange, especially as an Intelligence operative. It surprised him that she would bother, however. He swallowed, then tried her name on for size. It was a mouthful. “Kthira’kes’ina.”

She grimaced, looking as though his mispronunciation of her name caused her actual physical pain. “Kthira’ _kes_ ’in _a,”_ she corrected him.

He tried it again, putting emphasis where he thought she had done the same, but she wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“Just call me Kes. Please.”

“Kes, huh?” It was certainly easier to say, and less of a hassle than calling her ‘the Red Blade’ all the kriffing time. Theron held out his hand to her, and after a moment of hesitation she reached out to take it. Her skin was warm, her palm slightly sweaty. He shook her hand, plastering a smile on his face.

“Call me Theron.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've tried doing research on Chiss biology and am trying to stay as close to canon here, but I apologize for any mistakes I've made. I'm also not a doctor, so while I strive for accuracy as much as possible I am by no means an expert and frankly, I'm writing for fun (and for free). Exceptions are made in the interests of moving the story along.
> 
> Also, if you're interested in "equivalent exchange" you should go and read the fanfic of the same name by InyriAscending, if you haven't already. Her Cipher Nine/Theron Shan romance is, in my opinion, the definitive IA/Shan relationship. She captures their voices _perfectly._


	4. Sensitive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron discovers how compromised he is - in more ways than one.

Theron was familiar with the bite of paranoia that made him feel as if every second not spent hidden away in some top-secret safehouse might be his last, but familiarity didn’t make it a comfortable sensation. Common sense told him that not every single person, droid and security camera in the Duros Sector was on him; instinct told him that at least _some_ of them were, and he had no way of knowing whether the glances tossed in his direction were hostile or mildly curious.

The woman beside him seemed completely unconcerned. He knew that on the surface he likewise appeared nonchalant, but her apparent ease annoyed him, as if it was somehow categorically unfair that she should be so calm when he was (privately and discreetly) freaking out.

The two of them had cleaned up the flophouse as best they could, destroying all evidence they had ever been there before heading out together to access one of Theron’s dead-drops in the Duros Sector. Theron wasn’t about to take an Imperial spy ( _ex_ Imperial spy, but still very much on the Republic’s Most Wanted list) into an SIS listening post, but they had agreed that he needed to make contact with his own people and let them know that his team had been compromised. A very large part of him was still hoping to find a message waiting for him to let him know that Anniatt and Itayo had checked in. If they _had_ checked in there would be a notification at the dead-drop, as well as a safe means for him to contact them. Theron and the Red Blade – Kes, she insisted he call her, when her Chiss name proved too much of a mouthful for his clumsy human tongue – had both ditched their comms on the off-chance they were being tracked, and he had rebooted his implants in order to reset the open link he had to his team for the same reason.

The dead-drop was in the southwest quadrant of the Duros Sector, a communications device hacked into the back end of a HoloNet substation the Hutts used for sports and entertainment channels. Theron had never used the device – at least, not this particular one – but he knew the location and specifics well enough to be able to find it, and he’d memorized the codes and access ports before his team had started their assignment. There was a certain irony in taking the target of said assignment to the site of the dead-drop he had been supposed to use to notify the SIS that the Red Blade was dead, but Theron was trying very hard not to think about that too much.

Now Kord was the one who was dead, Anniatt and Itayo might very well be dead or dying, and the woman Theron was supposed to have killed was walking along beside him as though she hadn’t a care in the world.

Not that anyone would have recognized the woman beside him as the Red Blade.

Instead of a blue-skinned, blue-haired Chiss wearing bloodied tactical gear Kes’s holo-imager had transformed her into a plain-looking human woman with dark hair and eyes, dressed like a spacer and looking like any of the hundreds of humans wandering around on Nar Shaddaa. Theron felt fairly confident she had used this disguise before (it matched up with reports his team had collected while waiting for her) but she was so nondescript that he honestly couldn’t swear to it. She even carried herself differently than she had as the Red Blade: gone were the quick, steady strides of a woman with someplace to be and important things to do, and in her place was someone slouching and scurrying, her shoulders drawn in as if she expected to be struck for being noticed.

She wasn’t even limping, and Theron knew exactly how much her leg had to be hurting. He’d treated the kriffing wound, after all.

He tried not to let himself be impressed. He could change his stride, the way he carried himself, his body language: he had the training. And his implants could block the pain receptors that would have made him limp, were he suffering from the same leg injury. Kes was a badass and no mistake, but Theron had enough self-confidence to know that he was pretty badass himself, and he was not going to let himself be impressed by some Imp.

(He was a little bit impressed.)

The two of them approached the alley where the communications substation was located, the durasteel walls covered in graffiti (most of it was some variation on “Fuck the Empire” with a few priapic dicks drawn in for good measure – _stay classy, Nar Shaddaa_ ) and heaps of garbage piled high on either side. Theron honestly couldn’t tell if the graffiti and garbage were genuine or part of some clever disguise, but the scent of urine strongly indicated that _someone_ considered the alley legit. Kes wrinkled her nose and followed Theron down the alley, stepping carefully around piles of refuse and what looked suspiciously like a discarded synthskin condom. _Nice._

“Under normal circumstances I’d ask you to avert your eyes,” Theron said, glancing over one shoulder to be certain no one was watching them, “but at this point I’m pretty sure the SIS is just gonna have to burn all our Nar Shad locations entirely and start over from scratch.”

Kes had her back to Theron, her keen eyes no doubt surveying their surroundings to be certain no one was paying any attention to him, but at his comment she let out an amused huff and turned around.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. It was strange hearing her voice coming from such an unfamiliar face. Stranger still to have eyes with pupils that followed him. She smiled sharply. “Imperial Intelligence knows where most of your safehouses, listening posts and dead-drops are already.”

Theron paused in mid-step, giving her a curious glance. “And you’re just … telling me this?”

Kes still sounded amused. “What, you thought they didn’t know?”

_‘They,’_ Theron noted. _Not ‘us.’_ She had said she was retired, but he’d thought it was just words. Of course, it could still be just words; she could easily be playing him, lulling him into a false sense of security. It’s what he would have done. What he _should_ be doing instead of giving her the whirlwind tour of SIS Nar Shaddaa ops.

He made a noncommittal noise and continued towards the substation. Someone had spray-painted over the screen – his best guess was that he was looking at a large vagina with teeth, but the artist was lacking in skill so he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain although honestly, A for effort – but that wasn’t the part of the comm station that interested him. He maneuvered in behind the station, fitting himself in between the panel and the durasteel wall at the end of the alley, looking out of habit for other signs of tampering. The graffiti was the only evidence anyone had come back here; it wasn’t like the alley was the most inviting place. Behind the _vagina dentata_ Theron could see the feed on the HoloNet, a steady stream of Huttball scores and holocam footage from the latest game. There was no sound; the feed was video-only.

Sensitive fingers slipped over the side panel, searching for the compartment he needed to open in order to access the dead-drop. The metal was cool and slightly sticky to the touch, something that Theron decided didn’t really bear much thinking about (it was almost certainly something biological and honestly? He didn’t need to know what he was sticking his hand in, thank you _very_ much). His middle finger skimmed the edge of the durasteel hatch before he found the slight depression where the latch should be. He hooked his index finger in under the latch, then –

_“Ouch.”_ Something sharp and jagged nicked his finger and he recoiled, immediately and instinctively popping the bloodied finger in his mouth before he had time to consider the disgusting mess he had _literally_ just been touching. He grimaced. _Oh, that’s nasty …_

“What? What’s wrong?” Kes was immediately there, holographic features set in concern, and yup, that was still weird.

Theron opened his mouth to tell her that it was nothing, that he was just a clumsy idiot who had cut his finger, when a sudden wave of dizziness struck him. Pulling his finger out of his mouth he stared at the offending digit - blood welling up around the gash - in horror as his vision tunnelled and a dull roar started up in his ears.

“Shit, I think I’ve been poisoned.” That was what Theron _tried_ to say, but what came out of his mouth barely qualified as words: _“Shhh, uffink uvn puhz’n’d.”_ His tongue felt too large and clumsy and there was a sharply metallic taste in his mouth. He was dimly aware of Kes staring at him, her lips moving but no sound coming out, at least nothing that Theron could hear. Then he couldn’t see her face at all – everything was suddenly both very blurry and very dark, and the resulting combination left him feeling dizzy and disoriented – and he found himself being shoved away from the substation.

Theron went sprawling on his hands and knees, landing in what he knew had to be a pile of garbage. He couldn’t see or hear anything but he sensed a presence beside him, forcing him down. He flailed out, panicking at the loss of sensory input, only to be shoved back down. There was a weight on his back, a brief touch that was there and then gone again, and then he could no longer sense anyone beside him. He was alone, hunched over on his hands and knees, unable to see or hear and having no clue what was happening - to him or around him, it didn’t matter. Panic flared up again and this time he found it harder to push it back down, twin feelings of helplessness and abandonment making his chest tight, like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

There was, he thought as he struggled for self-control, some kind of fight happening around him, but it was terribly difficult to focus on anything other than the dull throbbing in his hand and the fact that he had gone blind and deaf in a matter of seconds and _fuck fuck fuck_ had Kes left him? Was he alone? What the kriff was happening? Dizzying waves of nausea struck at him – no doubt heightened by the fact that he could still smell and he was facedown in refuse and yup, that was definitely piss he smelled – and Theron struggled to keep from throwing up or passing out in the garbage. That would really be a literally shit end to a shitty day and he was absolutely _not_ going to have it on record that Theron Shan passed out in a puddle of urine and rotten food. Because fuck that.

Everything happened around him in flashes of light and sound, as though he was trapped in a holovid where huge chunks of footage had been edited out, leaving nothing but a discordant mess behind. He saw the garbage underneath him. He heard a crunch as of bone snapping and a cry of pain. A flash of blue skin and black tactical gear out of the corner of his eye. Something hard and metallic cracking off the ground near his head. Silence. Darkness. More flashes.

Theron’s mind was racing, his thoughts too fast and too disordered for him to keep up. He was dimly aware that he was talking – babbling, in fact – but he had no idea what he was saying. He felt like he couldn’t keep track of his own thoughts, much less articulate them clearly, and yet at the same time he absolutely _had_ to talk, was physically _incapable_ of doing anything else, like if his mouth wasn’t constantly running something inside of him might explode. He couldn’t hear himself, had no idea what he was saying, if it was in Basic or Huttese or binary for kriff sake or if he was just making meaningless animalistic sounds.

He scrabbled over onto his back, thinking to put his back to the wall in order to protect himself, but once he was turned around he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing. His fingers twitched; he couldn’t see them, but he could feel himself rubbing at the fabric of his trousers, suddenly desperate for contact. He couldn’t keep still any more than he could keep his mouth shut. He wanted to get up and run. He wanted to curl up in a little ball and cry. All he could do was lay there and hope desperately that this terrible feeling would end soon.

He felt disconnected from his own body. His mouth was not his mouth. His hands were not his hands. He had the distant sense that he was panicking in a way that he had not done while under the Revanites’ control or when Vitiate was turning his own people into mindless puppets. He didn’t seem to know how to make it stop.

He had no idea how long he was trapped like that, struggling desperately to pull himself together. It felt like years. It felt like seconds. Time was meaningless.

Something warm coiled around Theron’s waist and he found himself hauled upright into a standing position. He staggered, falling heavily against a soft yet solid bulk, and the weight around his waist increased until he was pulled up tight and held in place.

The buzzing in his ears coalesced into a woman’s voice, calm yet insistent, with an accent that was both familiar and exotic.

“Come on, Agent Shan,” the voice urged him. “One foot in front of the other. That’s good. _Very_ good. Come on.”

_Kes._ He remembered now. The Red Blade. Cipher Nine. _Kthira’kes’ina._ They were allies, sort of. She was holding him up, helping him to walk. She was warm and solid and surprisingly strong.

“Yes, that’s right.” Theron didn’t remember talking – his lips were moving, though, so maybe sound was coming out? He couldn’t hear himself, just her – but she seemed to answering him. “You’re doing well, Agent Shan. Just … maybe stop talking for a bit, okay?”

Theron wanted to agree with her but his mouth apparently wasn’t on board with that plan, because he still felt himself talking. He couldn’t understand a single thing he was saying, and the fact that he understood _her_ was a miracle in and of itself. Maybe he wasn’t speaking in Basic. Maybe she couldn’t understand him, either.

She sighed; he felt it more than heard it, her entire body seeming to shift and heave at once. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that he was trying to work with her, but the words weren’t coming out right. Force only knew what was coming out of his mouth. As undignified as it was Theron was kind of hoping for incoherent moaning, maybe a bit of animalistic whining. Far better than any of the other unfiltered noises his stupid mouth could be making.

“Okay, Agent Shan, you’re doing such a good job. Just keep walking, there you go, well done!” Theron couldn’t help the spark of warmth her praise kindled in him – such a small, stupid thing to receive praise for or to be proud of, keeping himself upright and walking. Stars, he had help for this, it wasn’t like he was moving about on his own! And yet her praise _did_ warm him, almost absurdly so, and as his incoherent babbling increased he felt her give a little start and her arm tightened around his waist.

“Come on, Agent Shan, you’re doing well.”

“Theron.” He was pretty sure he managed to get that word out, so score marks for him, being able to utter his own kriffing name. _Gold star, Shan._ The rest was a bit more garbled: “Tol’ y’ t’ call me Theron.”

Another sigh, heavier than the last. “Yes, you did. But I really need you to be Agent Shan right now.”

That didn’t make any sense to him, because he was Theron and he was Agent Shan and there wasn’t really any difference between the two in his mind. He didn’t say anything, however – or at least not anything he understood although he was certain his mouth kept doing that thing where it moved all on its own because fuck him, he was not going to get a break today – but let her guide him along. His vision hadn’t improved enough for him to see where they were going but her steps were sure and he had the sense that she had the situation under control. Which was great, really, because Theron was pretty sure he wasn’t currently in control of anything.

Time and consciousness faded in and out. The only thing keeping Theron upright was Kes’s hold on him, and thank the Force her arm might as well have been made of durasteel for all the give she had. Kes continued talking to him, her voice his lifeline, a steady stream of praise and cajoling and reassurances that he clung to like a drowning man.

When Theron finally came back to himself he was half-lying, half-sitting propped up against a rucksack in an incredibly cramped space that looked an awful lot like the shaft of a ventilation system. (He’d been in more than a few in his years in the SIS. And before that, as well, in what he thought of as his misspent youth. Ventilation shafts weren’t nearly as comfortable or accommodating as the media had led him to believe.) His throat hurt and he was desperately thirsty. The jagged cut along his finger had been bandaged, the crisp white fabric vivid in the dim lighting. He was tired and achy but his hearing and vision were back and he no longer felt as though he was just along for the ride inside his own body. He felt more or less in control of himself again.

Kes sat hunched over a few feet away, her head in her hands, every line in her body indicative of exhaustion. Even in the darkness Theron could make out the dark spots of blood on the bandage on her thigh, and the knowledge that she must have re-opened the stitches in her leg sent a pang of guilt through him. Because if she had hurt herself - again - she had almost certainly done so on his behalf.

“You were supposed to take it easy,” Theron said. His voice came out as a hoarse croak that made him grimace. It hurt to talk, like he’d been screaming for days. Years, even.

The words slipped out of his mouth before he had time to think, and when Kes tilted her head towards him the look she gave him in response required absolutely no translation. He winced.

“Right. Yeah. Sorry. That was a stupid fucking thing to say.” Theron swallowed, trying to drum up some moisture in his mouth, but all he got was a thick coppery taste and the distinct impression that a horde of bantha had crawled down his throat and died. _Delightful._ He met her gaze, embarrassed at how relieved he felt to be staring back into red eyes instead of the unfamiliar brown of her holo-imager; he didn’t want to admit how unsettling it had been to see her disguising herself, or how quickly he had ceased to think of her as alien. “You saved my ass back there. I mean, you saved my life.”

“I don’t think they were trying to kill us,” Kes replied. She shifted, moving towards him on hands and knees, and began rummaging in the sack behind his head. “I think they were trying to take us captive.”

She pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to him. Theron’s hands shook when he accepted it from her, a full-blown tremble that made him almost drop the bottle into his lap. He looked at the opened cap and frowned; as thirsty as he was, he couldn’t bring himself to drink from a bottle he didn’t remember opening himself. Kes watched him, saw his reaction to the opened bottle and made a disgusted sound before yanking it out of his hands and fetching another – this time unopened – bottle from within the rucksack. She drank from the opened bottle while he struggled to get the cap off the new one.

Kes muttered something in a language Theron didn’t know and took the bottle from him, twisting the cap off with a single savage motion before handing it back to him. “If I wanted to kill you I could’ve done so dozens of times over by now. The water isn’t tampered with. There. Drink.”

“I’m sorry,” Theron said quietly, taking a small sip which quickly turned into a much larger gulp that emptied half the bottle. It hurt to swallow but the water felt good in his mouth and on his throat. “I don’t think I’m all the way back yet.”

She snorted but didn’t say anything, simply took out another – unopened – bottle of water, cracked the cap off, and handed it to him. The first was already empty but Theron took his time with the second before sitting back to study the bandage on his hand. Seeing it made him think of the one on Kes’s thigh, and he glanced over to see her sinking back down against the wall, head falling forward until her chin was resting on her chest.

“What happened back there?” he asked. Now that he’d had something to drink his voice didn’t sound quite so awful, but he still had the sense that he had been screaming for hours on end.

“How much do you remember?” She didn’t look at him, her gaze focused on her hands.

“Not a lot.” He took another few sips of his water, savouring it. “I cut my hand on something and then everything kind of … went away. My hearing and vision were all fucked up, I got dizzy … Did you push me? Into the garbage?”

“We were under attack.” Kes glanced up at him then, her expression unreadable. In the darkness it was difficult to make out her features. “You were out of it. I needed to get you out of the way.”

“How many?”

Her eyes dimmed, and Theron realized with a start that her red eyes seemed to glow in the dark. _Huh. Neat._

“They had about fifteen, but now they have none. That strike force, at least. I’m sure there’s more where they came from.”

“Wait … _what?_ What happened?”

Kes met his eyes. “Me, Agent Shan. I happened.”

Stars above and below, Theron should not have found that as hot as he did. He definitely had some wires crossed somewhere. Jonas would have a kriffing field day if he knew. Whatever Theron was thinking must have shown on his face because Kes suddenly grinned at him and looked away again.

“It sounds more impressive than it was,” she said quietly, ducking her head to hide her amusement. “They were trying to trap us in that enclosed space, but it ended up creating a bottleneck that worked in my favour. Besides,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “It’s not as if I had much choice.”

“Yeah – again, I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “Agent Shan –”

“I’m pretty sure I told you to call me Theron.”

That earned him another blank look, and Kes said carefully, “Yes, you told me a lot of things, actually. In fact, you kind of … had a lot to say. Do you remember any of that? Do you remember anything you said?”

Theron blinked. He remembered running his mouth off, which was par for the course with him, really, but this was the first time he had no clue what the hell he’d been saying and no way of stopping it. The possibilities raced through his mind – SIS objectives, Republic secrets, the names and secret identities of his fellow agents (including several placed within Imperial agencies; kriff, he was a senior agent and he knew too much – and a cold nugget of fear settled itself in his stomach. He’d had utterly no control over what he’d been saying, and Force if he wasn’t one of the worst people in the galaxy for that to happen to. He had access to way too much classified and highly sensitive information. Forget Balkar’s reaction to learning Theron found a Chiss Imp spy killing a bunch of guys hot; Saresh was going to fucking _murder_ him.

Once again Kes must have read his thoughts on his face – he found himself completely unable to school his expression, likely a remnant of whatever he’d be dosed with because shit, he was better than this – and her hand shot out, fingers curling around his wrist in a gesture of support.

“Relax, Agent Shan,” she said, then corrected herself, _“Theron._ You couldn’t seem to make yourself shut up, but nothing you said was …” She heaved a sigh and looked away, shifting awkwardly. “It was sensitive, but it wasn’t … Republic-sensitive. More … _you_ -sensitive. You weren’t spilling state secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Of course it was, but Theron felt only a smidgen of relief at hearing her tell him he hadn’t shared classified intel with her. On the one hand, she could be lying. On the other, there was a lot of information about himself that he would just as soon an Imperial spy not have, and …

_“Shit,”_ was all he said, letting his head drop into his hands.

“I can tell you equally embarrassing secrets about myself, if you think it would help.” There was a faint hint of teasing in her voice, and when Theron looked up again he saw that she was smiling in his direction. He felt his cheeks flush and was grateful that it was probably too dark for her to see. Of course for all he knew Chiss could see in the dark, or read minds or some shit like that. _Fuck._

“How much of it will be true?” he asked her, then winced, wanting to take the words back. She was being nice, she had saved his ass, and now he had to go and act like the suspicious spy he was. To say that Theron had trust issues would be a massive understatement, but still, he didn’t need to take it out on Kes. Imperial agent or not, she didn’t deserve it.

Kes didn’t seem at all offended by his question, however, although she elected not to answer it. After a few minutes of awkward silence Theron finished off his second water bottle and cleared his throat.

“That word you said before … What language was that in? Chiss?”

“Cheunh,” Kes said shortly. She was inspecting the bandage wrapped around his finger, the one he’d cut on the panel. Looking back on it, he could now see that the jagged thing he’d cut himself on had been perfectly placed; it was precisely where one’s hand would naturally fall when reaching around inside the panel. The fact that their – still frustratingly unknown – enemies had had a team waiting for them suggested either they’d somehow known Theron would be heading for _that specific dead-drop,_ or that they had multiple teams waiting and ready to go. Both conclusions were unsettling.

“Cheunh,” Theron repeated.

“It’s the Chiss language.” At his raised eyebrow Kes glared. “What, do you call the language you speak ‘human’?”

“I speak a bunch of languages,” Theron replied carefully, aware that his ignorance had been cause for offense in a way that his assumption she would lie to him had not. “But no, none of those languages are just called ‘human.’ What did the word mean? What you said?”

“It was a curse word.” Kes let his hand go and began gathering up the empty bottles and medical supplies stashed around them, shoving everything into the rucksack that she yanked out from under Theron. “It doesn’t translate.” She drew back, expression and tone softening as she asked, “Are you well enough to get out of here now? We should get moving.”

Theron nodded cautiously, taking stock of his body. He still felt jittery and a little bit loopy, but he’d worked under worse conditions before – stars, he’d been a complete disaster after the Revanites and yet he’d still managed to function. His mind was no longer racing, the buzzing had (mostly) gone from his ears and his vision had cleared (or at least he thought it had; the ventilation shaft was too dark for him to be absolutely certain). Kes returned his nod solemnly and slung the rucksack over one shoulder, then jerked her head towards their left, indicating the way out. Theron let her lead, steadfastly refusing to stare at her ass as he did so, and instead found himself focusing on a question that had always bothered him. He’d never had anyone he could ask it of before.

“I’ve always wondered something,” he said, crawling on his hands and knees behind Kes. She moved easily, as if there wasn’t a bandage wrapped around one thigh, covering a nasty bullet wound that should have been incredibly painful. She grunted to indicate she had heard him, and he continued, “The Empire looks down on all alien species. Why in the galaxy would the Chiss Ascendancy choose to ally with them?”

Kes threw him an unreadable glance over one shoulder before continuing down the passage.

“Because we – the Chiss Ascendancy, I mean – don’t need them to tell us our worth, Agent Shan,” she said simply. “We don’t need anyone to tell us our worth.”

Theron wondered what that felt like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was giving me hell. I had it all set up perfectly inside my head but it did _not_ want to come out.


	5. Vulnerable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Kthira'kes'ina introduce each other to their Nar Shaddaa contacts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be up several days ago but I've been without internet (man, you really don't notice how much you rely on the internet for writing references until you're forced to search for information on your cellphone), so here it finally is!
> 
> Also, trigger warning for implications of transactional sex and a very, _very_ faint hint of slut-shaming as a result

The Star Cluster casino had a service entrance and elevator in the back, accessible from a landing pad connected to a private speeder route. This fact was not a surprise to Theron, although it wasn’t something he had known prior to this morning. It made sense for a fancy place like the Cluster to have a separate entrance for deliveries and staff; you wouldn’t want such mundane things like crates of food or exhausted Twi’leks in their off-hours clothes to spoil the grandeur of the casino’s main entrance. It also wasn’t a surprise that someone like Kthira’kes’ina – former Imperial spy and current independent Intelligence contractor – would know where the service entrance was and how to access it. It was part of the job, after all; Theron could think of at least twenty different “off the books” areas he personally knew how to access on Nar Shaddaa alone, and it was reasonable to expect Kes to be equally well-versed in the secrets of the Smuggler’s Moon. What was something of a surprise, however, was the fact that Kes had access to a private suite in the casino, and that it wasn’t tied into some other identity – at least, none that Theron had observed.

Kes led him to the back entrance as though she had every right in the galaxy to be there. She was limping slightly, her earlier exertions having done a number on her already-taxed leg, but she was quick and purposeful as she punched in the code to summon the service elevator. Theron was tired and anxious, the back of his neck crawling as he scanned for security cameras and overly observant guards. The area was clear – more than that, the area was completely deserted, although there were faint traces of cigarra smoke to indicate someone had recently been out there on break.

“How do you know this guy?” Theron asked, letting Kes lead the way into the elevator. Unlike the elevators inside the casino this one was dark and dingy, graffiti on the walls and an air freshener dangling from the ceiling fan. It clearly wasn’t intended for patron use. “Is he safe?”

Kes hit the button for the penthouse suite, her face scrunched up in thought. “‘Safe’ is probably too strong a word,” she acknowledged. The elevator lifted up with a harsh shudder and she had to catch herself on the wall to keep from knocking into Theron. Her bad leg made her unsteady in a way Theron hadn’t seen before, and he suspected she was finally starting to run out of steam. He felt much the same. “He’s not Imperial and he’s a not Pub, so he’s unlikely to care that we’re working together. He’s not motivated by credits – he’s already ridiculously wealthy – so he won’t be interested in selling us out. And he likes me.”

“He … likes you,” Theron repeated, tone flat. Some of the floor lights were out; he watched as the elevator seemed to skip past floors 7 and 8 – both level indicators unlit – and make its ponderous way from 6 to 9 and upward.

“He doesn’t like a lot of people,” Kes replied. She gave him a look, one he found difficult to decipher, and continued, “He’s a bit … odd. He used to have a woman working for him but she left years ago. Now it’s just him and his droids. I’m the only sentient he has any interest in.”

“Define ‘interest.’”

This time the expression Kes shot him was verging on hostile as she said, tone sharp, “He finds me desirable. I find him useful. It’s an equitable agreement.”

Whatever Theron intended to say in response to that – and he was honestly floundering for something that wouldn’t sound judgmental or ignorant – was cut off when the elevator dinged and the doors flew open, revealing a narrow corridor with dark carpeting and dim lighting. Kes stepped out of the elevator without a backward glance and Theron followed close behind. The corridor led to another locked door; once again Kes keyed in a sequence on the nearby keypad and a green light flashed, the door unlocking with an audible click.

A security droid awaited them in the next room, standing at parade rest with its visual receptors facing the door.

“Greetings, Mistress Paiiri’ann’ath,” the droid intoned, nodding its head in Kes’s general direction. “Master Tlan has been expecting you. Your suite has been prepared, as well as a guest room for Mister Naasade.”

Theron glanced at Kes, quietly absorbing the new names. Paiiri’ann’ath sounded Chiss and Kes wasn’t using her holo-imager to disguise her species, so her ‘friend’ obviously knew to expect a Chiss woman; whether or not that was her real name was uncertain, but Theron thought it unlikely. She hadn’t given him their host’s name, but it sounded like this ‘Master Tlan’ was it, and it wasn’t a name Theron recognized. As for ‘Mister Naasade’ – well, Theron wasn’t exactly fluent in Mando’a but he recognized the Mandalorian word for ‘nobody’ well enough. Whether or not Master Tlan would know it was another question.

“Thank you, Arr-nine,” Kes replied, sweeping past the droid with the regal air of a queen entering her throne room. Her limp had vanished again, her demeanour subtly shifted into something dark and sultry. She turned and looked at Theron over one shoulder, gesturing imperiously for him to accompany her. “Come along, Marcus. Let’s not keep Jordel waiting.”

_Marcus,_ really? Theron thought, successfully hiding a wince at being referred to by his boss’s name. It might have been coincidence, but he wouldn’t have been at all surprised to learn that Kes knew the name of the Director of the Strategic Information Service. At least she was only using his first name; unaffiliated with Imperial Intelligence or not Theron would not have been thrilled to have Kes’s contact calling him _Marcus Trant._

Jordel was not kept waiting for long. The droid – Arr-nine, apparently – opened the next door for them and there, in the middle of the sitting room, was a large man in what looked like a fuzzy white robe. The man stood, holding his arms open, and Kes obediently came forward to let him embrace her. They were of a height, the man’s neatly-trimmed brown hair barely visible over Kes’s own blue locks, but Jordel Tlan was much, much broader, with wide shoulders and a thick barrel chest. He beamed at Kes adoringly, dark eyes fixed on her face, then glanced in Theron’s direction.

“It’s good to see you again, darling,” he said, releasing her. “I’ve had the droids set everything up the way you like it. My chef is preparing something new for dinner; you and your friend have enough time to shower and freshen up, and then we’ll sit down to eat.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Kes said. Her voice had changed slightly in pitch, going a few notes higher while taking on a sweetly affectionate tone. Theron didn’t know what to think of it, save that he much preferred the voice she used with him. He wasn’t so naïve as to believe she used her ‘true’ voice with him – although there was a small part of him that rather hoped she did – but this new persona was one that didn’t sit well with him. It was cloying and fake and he didn’t understand how Jordel Tlan didn’t see right through it.

Arr-nine led Theron to the guest room, which was massive enough to deserve the title of “suite” all on its own and made Theron wonder just how much bigger Kes’s personal suite was – and how big, exactly, the penthouse apartment was. Kes had said Jordel Tlan was wealthy, but to own or lease so much space in the premiere casino on Nar Shaddaa put the man into a price bracket Theron was woefully inexperienced with. His mentor, Master Ngani Zho, had raised Theron to spurn material possessions, but one look at Tlan’s tastefully-decorated penthouse and Theron was doing the exact _opposite_ of spurning.

The only bags Theron had were the ones that contained their weapons, gear and medical supplies, and he carefully set those down on top of a low dresser, studiously avoiding his own reflection in the nearby mirror. The guest room was large and lavishly appointed, with what looked to be a king-sized bed and its on en suite ‘fresher. By comparison he felt very small and very unkempt.

A quick shower put the “unkempt” part to rights. Theron normally took very little time in the shower – contrary to what his colleagues might say, his hair actually required minimal work and the rest of him was completely low-maintenance because he was a field agent and he seldom had the time to pamper himself – but for some reason the idea of leaving Kes alone with Tlan bothered him, and so he rushed through his speedy ablutions. When he stepped out of the shower he was surprised to see that his filthy clothes had been replaced with a clean set of trousers, long-sleeved T-shirt and fresh socks and underwear. He hesitated a moment before donning the clean clothes, but his own were gone – hopefully not permanently; he kriffing _loved_ that jacket – and he had no particular desire to wander around Tlan’s apartment in his all-together.

When he wandered out of the guest room a droid – not Arr-Nine this time – directed him to the dining room, where he found Tlan already seated at a long table. There were, Theron noticed, only two chairs, one at either end. Two droids were bringing food in from what Theron guessed must be the kitchen, and as he watched them deftly moving around the table and each other Kes came up behind him. Like Theron she had had her grimy, blood-stained armour swapped out; unlike Theron, Kes wasn’t wearing trousers or a fitted shirt. Instead she wore a long, slinky dress with slits cut up the sides to expose an awful lot of long blue leg. The dress was a deep wine colour that complemented her striking red eyes.

Kes paused, taking in the table, clearly set for two, then pasted a smile on her face. Without further hesitation she moved around to Tlan’s end, beaming down at the man. After a moment Tlan pushed his chair back to allow Kes to sit in his lap, and as she did so one of the droids came forward to lay another plate setting at their end of the table.

_This is fine,_ Theron thought, easing down onto the remaining chair. _This is all perfectly normal._ A droid pushed his seat in for him as another set down a platter of some kind of roast meat. The smell was mouth-watering and Theron found himself trying to remember when he had last had anything to eat. Probably not since before he had left for Club Ufora, and that was … about a day ago, now. He hadn’t exactly been paying attention to the time, but by now his team was long overdue for their scheduled check-in and someone at HQ would have noticed their absence. The problem was that Theron was known for going off the grid, and while Saresh had wanted this op to be by the books he was fairly certain Trant wasn’t going to start worrying until several days had passed with no word from Theron or his team. The others were supposed to have been a grounding influence on him, but Trant would likely assume that Theron had instead proven to be a corrupter and they were just picking up his bad habits.

Sometimes there were serious downsides to being Trant’s biggest pain in the ass agent. The fact that Theron was also – arguably – his best was the only reason Trant hadn’t turfed him. That, and Theron was pretty sure his boss kept him around solely to piss Chancellor Saresh off.

“This is all so lovely, darling,” Kes cooed, as droids began serving. Tlan’s plate was filled first, then Kes’s, then finally Theron’s. “What are we having?”

Tlan went into a lengthy description of the various dishes, their cooking styles, their planetary origins and the difficulty in acquiring specific ingredients (which, naturally, served to demonstrate how insanely wealthy he was). Theron mostly tuned the man out, his focus turned to the food set out before him as he tried to determine whether or not it would be safe to eat. Kes said she trusted this guy but Theron had already had his fill with being drugged and incapacitated, thank you very much. On the other hand, he was in an apartment filled with droids and it maybe wasn’t a smart move to piss off the host who controlled them. The droids were serving everyone from the same dishes, however, so once Tlan and Kes began eating – Tlan feeding little tidbits directly into Kes’s mouth, to Theron’s abject disgust and secondary embarrassment – Theron tucked in.

Fuck his life but the food was good.

Theron was not and would never be what anyone would consider a ‘foodie.’ He’d been raised on plain, healthy fare – gruel, lots of fruit and vegetables, the occasional ration bar when credits were tight – and as an adult he tended to gravitate towards sweets and meals that could be eaten on the go. Kalda Biss liked to joke that he had no taste buds whatsoever and Jonas Balkar often said that Theron ate too quickly to even notice what food he put in his mouth, but that was untrue. He _did_ have taste buds and he _did_ (usually) notice what he was eating. He just didn’t often have the time or resources to spare on something as mundane as food.

Jordel Tlan was a man with plenty of time and resources, and it showed. His chef – another droid, of course – probably had millions of recipes stored away in its internal memory core, and all Tlan had to do was say “I’m in the mood for …” and the droid would prepare it. Consequently the food set out in front of Theron was amazing, and that, coupled with the fact that it really had been a long time since he last had anything to eat, meant that he cleaned his plate in an embarrassingly short amount of time.

Tlan continued to feed Kes from his own plate, despite the fact that she had place settings of her own. If Kes was bothered by it – and honestly, how could she not be? – she gave no indication. Instead she listened attentively to every word Tlan uttered, giggling at what Theron assumed must be jokes (but weren’t especially funny, as far as Theron was concerned) and simpering up at the man. If Theron hadn’t read the woman’s file, with its extensive list of successful operations and lengthy kill-count, he would have been completely fooled by her act.

Once the food was taken away – Kes finished first, although whether it was because she was truly full or because she was simply tired of having the man’s fingers in her mouth, Theron couldn’t have said – Tlan ushered his guests into the sitting room for drinks. The sitting room was as opulently appointed as the rest of the penthouse apartment and there were several long, low-backed couches for lounging upon, but Kes ended up on Tlan’s lap again. Theron found himself perching on the end of his own seat, a glass of Whyren’s Reserve in one hand while he prayed for the night to end.

Conversation drifted from food to droids to various random inconsequential topics. Tlan barely acknowledged Theron’s presence, too wrapped up in Kes to notice the other man in the room aside from offering him whiskey and then tuning out any attempts Theron might have made to join in on the discussion. While Theron sat and drank Kes giggled and flirted, deftly steering the conversation without seeming to do so. It took Theron some time to realize she was subtly asking Tlan if he had noticed anything strange going on on Nar Shaddaa, if there had been any suspicious or unusual activity, if anyone had tried to make contact with him recently. Tlan, it seemed, led a remarkably reclusive life, keeping himself isolated in his fancy penthouse with only his droids for company, but as he and Kes spoke Theron began to see how well-connected the other man was. He may have kept himself to himself, but Tlan’s fingers were in an awful lot of pies and his list of contacts extended into both Imperial and Republic space. He truly was independent, so far as Theron could tell, his only interests in his droids and maintaining his privacy.

Theron was about midway through his second glass of whiskey when he noticed the way Tlan’s hands moved on Kes. The man’s fingers traced patterns across her chest and abdomen, and at first glance the movements seemed idle, careless. Something about the pattern nagged at Theron, however, and it wasn’t until he’d watched Tlan go through several repeat cycles that he realized what he was looking at. There was nothing random about those motions, at all. Theron had sat through more than a few autopsies in his time with the SIS, and he had seen those _exact_ same patterns on corpses.

Tlan was tracing incision marks across Kes’s body as if deciding how best to cut her up.

Kes met Theron’s eyes across the room and gave a minute shake of her head. Theron swallowed the rest of his whiskey in a quick gulp and stood, setting his tumbler down on the nearby end table.

“I’m … uh … I’m gonna go hit the sack,” he said, around the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. Tlan’s hand rested lightly on Kes’s thigh, right over where her gunshot wound was. She didn’t flinch, even as the man’s fingers closed around her skin.

“Have a good night, Mister Naasade,” Tlan said absently, his dark eyes fixed on the woman on his lap.

Kes looked at Theron and gave a curt night. “Good night, Marcus.”

Theron bolted. It wasn’t until he got back to his room and had the door shut between himself and Tlan that he realized he was shaking. The man was creepy, no mistake about that, but it was the possessive, clinical way that he touched Kes that really bothered him.

And he’d just … left her alone out there with him. With a man who traced dissection patterns across her torso.

Theron’s head thumped back against the closed door. _Kriff._ What the fuck was he doing? He should go back out there, grab Kes and get the hell out of there. There wasn’t enough fancy food and thousand-thread-count duvets in the galaxy to make this place and its horrible owner worth spending another second there. He turned, hand on the door knob, and then paused.

Kes, for all that Theron was horrified and embarrassed on her behalf, hadn’t appeared even remotely distressed. She had laughed and flirted and gazed at Tlan adoringly. And _she_ had been the one to bring the two of them here, to Tlan’s penthouse where she had her own room. She obviously knew what the man was like and had decided that yes, to her it was worth it. She was a highly trained operative, one of the best Imperial Intelligence had ever produced, and she had run rings around the SIS for years before going rogue. If she thought she could handle Jordel Tlan, then who the kriff was Theron to second-guess her? The woman known as the Red Blade was hardly going to thank Theron for coming to her rescue.

Theron sank down on the bed and let out a small sigh. He was tired and his muscles still ached from the shock-stick, and now that his belly was full he was feeling logy to boot. He debated going back and standing by the door, keeping an ear open in case Kes needed him, but he genuinely wasn’t certain he wanted to hear anything she and Tlan might be up to. Bad enough to have witnessed Tlan hand-feeding her and using her torso as an autopsy teaching aid; Theron had no particular desire to bear witness to the main event, since he was pretty sure he had a good idea where things were heading between Tlan and Kes. He fell back on the bed, his head hitting the pillow, and although he would’ve sworn there was no way in the galaxy he was going to be able to sleep he was out in a matter of seconds.

He came to a short while later, waking to the sound of his door clicking shut. He immediately tensed, cursing himself for forgetting to leave a blaster pistol or knife under his pillow, but after a few seconds of silence he realized Kes was making her way through the room. She passed his bed, barely sparing him a glance – and yes, her eyes really did glow in the dark – and disappeared into his ‘fresher. Soon after Theron heard the sound of running water.

_What in the actual fuck?_ he thought, sitting up and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He’d fallen asleep fully clothed and the left-hand sleeve of his borrowed shirt had somehow gotten bunched up around his armpit, leaving his shoulder with a dull ache that was in no way aided by the abuse his body had taken over the last twenty-four hours or so. He spent a few seconds gently disentangling himself from the fabric and debated stripping down to his boxers, but the fact that Kes was there, in his room, made him hesitate. It wasn’t that he was body conscious. It was just that he had no clue what was happening or why the former Imperial agent was there, and he didn’t feel like adding an extra layer of complexity to matters by throwing in his own nudity.

The shower shut off and a few minutes later Kes came back out into the bedroom, wrapped up in a fluffy black robe and rubbing a towel over her wet hair. She came and stood in front of Theron, holding one hand out in front of her. It took Theron a few seconds to realize she was holding out a comb, offering it to him.

“Are you … asking me to comb your hair?” Theron asked, blinking rapidly as if suddenly suspicious she was a hallucination and blinking might clear his vision. She didn’t disappear - not that he’d really been expecting her to.

Kes nodded, and he was pretty sure she was avoiding his eyes. Not waiting for his response she climbed onto the bed and sat down cross-legged in front of him, tugging the belt around her waist a little tighter.

“Can you just …?” She sighed, shoulders rising and falling gently with her breath. “Please …?”

Theron nodded even though she couldn’t see him and gently drew the towel away from her hair. He’d never combed long hair before and his own was short enough that he mostly just ran fingers through it to straighten it out, but the mechanics seemed fairly straightforward. Honestly, how hard could it be? Kes was tense, sitting up straight to give him better access, but after a few cautious drags of the comb through her long, thick hair she seemed to relax a little. There was something strangely soothing about the repetitive motions, the steady rasp of hair through the teeth of the comb. The bath products she’d used in the shower left her smelling woodsy and clean, and Theron realized with a start that she’d chosen the same body wash he had used. There had been a rather impressive collection to choose from, and yet she’d picked his. He wondered if it meant anything, then wondered if he wanted it to.

“Did he hurt you?” Theron asked quietly. He glanced quickly at the chronometer on the end table beside the bed and saw that he’d been asleep for several hours. It felt much shorter than that and he mentally kicked himself for leaving her alone with Tlan for so long. Even if she’d essentially told him to do just that.

“No.” The word came out as a whisper, barely an exhalation. “He’s just … I always forget how creepy he is.”

“We didn’t have to come here.”

She turned, slowly enough that Theron managed to avoid snagging her hair on the comb, and looked at him over one shoulder. “Where else would we have gone? We needed some place to regroup. Jordel’s place … works.” Then she sighed again and added, “I was hoping he’d have more information.”

“I have an idea,” Theron said carefully, “about someone we could go to for intel. He’s Black Sun but he’s … well, ‘reliable’ is probably too strong a word, but he owes me a favour. A _lot_ of favours, actually, and …”

“Can we trust him?” Kes was noticeably relaxing, body going lax as Theron ran the comb through her hair over and over again. The long strands were beginning to dry, ends curling ever so slightly. He thought about offering to braid it for her, then realized he had no clue how to do so.

“Oh fuck no,” Theron said, and she laughed, a quiet, throaty chuckle that kindled something warm low in the pit of his belly. His cheeks flushed and he was grateful she was sitting facing away from him; he didn’t feel like being teased for blushing. “He’s a shifty jackass who’d sell his own mother if she wasn’t probably already dead or in jail somewhere, but like I said he owes me.” Theron didn’t think it necessary to go into the complicated relationship he had with the Weequay, nor did he feel like explaining to Kes that he had been the one to introduce the man to his wife. Vreglan Fel was an asshole, a cheat and a liar, but he dearly loved his wife and the gratitude he felt towards Theron for that introduction would – hopefully – be enough to overcome his generally greedy nature. That and the fact that if Vreg fucked Theron over he’d have to deal with Teff’ith, and for all that the Twi’lek threatened Theron every time she talked to him he knew she’d take it personally if anyone other than her got him hurt.

It would be neat if just one relationship in his life could be classified as ‘simple.’ Or at least ‘not complicated.’

“Are you okay?” he asked, after a few minutes of silence. “How’s your leg?”

Kes stretched the leg in question out in front of her, the robe opening up to expose bare skin and a neatly-bandaged thigh. The bandages were new, crisp white against her dark blue skin.

“It’s all right,” she said, uncurling her other leg so that both were stretched out. Long, narrow toes waggled, first one foot, then the other. “Jordel has a medical droid that patched me up.” She glanced at him again, expression apologetic. “You did a good job, but between one thing and another –”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Theron replied, touched that she was at all concerned that his feelings might be hurt because she’d had someone (or something) else take care of her. “I’m sure the bandages were filthy by the time we got here. Stars, that alley alone made me want to scrub all my skin off, and that was _before_ I got hit with some gas that shut off my brain-to-mouth filter and ended up on my ass.”

Kes chuckled again, then reached around to take the comb out of his hand. Her skin was warm and dry, and her hair was starting to rise up in a fluffy blue cloud from all the brushing.

“Thank you for this,” she said softly, scrambling off the bed to set the comb down on the dresser, beside the duffel full of weapons. Normal bedroom décor: _objets d’art_ , assorted toiletries, decorative lamp, bag of guns.

“It’s just a comb,” Theron said, before realizing that it wasn’t that at all. Kes could have combed her own hair. Stars, she could’ve taken a shower in her own no doubt much larger and fancier suite; she didn’t need to come into Theron’s room to use his ‘fresher. It dawned on him that what Kes had wanted hadn’t been to have her hair combed – or at least, not _just_ that. By Kes’s own admission Tlan had creeped her out, made her feel uncomfortable in her own skin. Getting Theron to comb her hair had been a means of engaging in physical contact without there being a sexual component to it. Sentient beings groomed each other all the time, it didn’t have to mean anything. She’d needed someone to touch her without making it sexual.

Theron wondered, for the first time since he’d taken the assignment to hunt the Red Blade down, when Kes had last known physical contact outside of medical treatment or – apparently – using her own body as currency. The files he had on her had indicated she’d once worked with a crew, but those people were clearly no longer in the picture or she would have already suggested going to them. She was alone.

_Stars,_ she was touch-starved.

Theron could relate.

He cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable. Kes shifted, moving around the end of the bed, both hands tugging and twisting at the tie around her waist that held her fluffy robe closed. She looked at him, red eyes glittering in the near-dark.

“Would you mind if I … if I slept here tonight?” she asked.

Theron looked around, eyes wide. “Um … Won’t Tlan be pissed? I mean, he thinks you’re _his,_ right?” He wanted to smack himself for suggesting that Tlan owned her, but Kes didn’t appear to take offense.

She shrugged. “He thinks we’re lovers. You and I, I mean. I may have … given him that impression.”

“Oh. Great.” Theron rubbed one hand over his eyes, suddenly wishing he’d had a lot more than a few hours’ sleep. “That’s … great. And he’s not … upset about that? I mean, you and he …”

“Jordel doesn’t own me,” Kes said, frowning at him. She seemed troubled, her hands tugging the belt back and forth, fraying the knot. “Our arrangement is … it’s a convenience, nothing more.” She looked away, then glanced back at Theron, discomfort showing. “I’m not … I’m not asking you to have sex with me, Theron. I just wanted to sleep.”

There was a note in Kes’s voice, a sort of hesitancy, that strongly suggested that she was willing to amend her stance if that’s what Theron wanted. That she would be willing to trade sex if it meant she would have someplace safe to sleep. Her readiness to objectify herself – to commodify herself – filled him with unease. He knew, from personal experience within the SIS, how easy it was to start seeing oneself as an object, one’s body simply another thing to trade in exchange for information or access or any of a number of things a spy or the Republic might need. He’d done it himself on occasion, although he’d never needed to fully commit to the seduction; in his case charm had gotten the job done without him going all the way. He was okay with that, happy for sex to remain something to enjoy, something he didn’t automatically equate with work. He suspected that hadn’t been the situation for Kes, and he wondered how often – prior to leaving Imperial Intelligence – she’d made the choice for herself.

Silence descended upon the bedroom, thick and uncomfortable. Kes took a step backward, away from the bed.

“I’m sorry, I can go back to my rooms,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine.” When she didn’t move Theron sighed and stood up, throwing back the covers on the bed before motioning for her to get inside. “As long as it’s not going to cause trouble with our host I think I would honestly feel better having you here to guard my back.”

Kes smiled suddenly, a shy expression that seemed genuine for all that Theron had already observed what an effective liar she was. She hesitated a moment longer before crawling onto the bed and settling down on her uninjured side, mindful of her wounded leg. Theron saw that she was still wearing her robe, so he shrugged out of his shirt – not wanting to wake up with it twisted around his shoulders again – and tossed it on a nearby chair before going over to the bag of weapons and taking out a pair of knives. He handed one to Kes, watching her slide it under her pillow, and then climbed in next to her. He moved around gingerly, afraid to jostle her injuries but also mindful of his own aching body. He lay on his back and felt painfully aware of the woman lying beside him. She was quiet, her breaths even but not yet deep enough to suggest sleep. After a few seconds she shifted in closer, one leg pressing against the back of Theron’s. He pressed back, acknowledging the contact, and didn’t move away.

Fuck. Theron was in so much trouble.

O o O o O

Theron woke up the next morning expecting things to be awkward between them, but aside from a momentary awareness of Kes’s nakedness – her robe having slipped loose during the night – everything was normal. Even her nudity felt rote, like it was simply a given that she would be naked in bed beside him, like it was the most ordinary thing in the galaxy. Kes’s vulnerability of the night before seemed to have vanished; she got up and ducked out of the bedroom, heading to her own room to change and groom herself, and Theron enjoyed a few minutes of smacking himself in the head for being an awkward idiot. Then he too got out of bed to face the day.

Tlan was gone – whether hiding in his own private rooms or gone from the apartment entirely, Theron didn’t know – but the droids were in the process of preparing a gourmet breakfast and there was a datapad left out for Kes. It contained a message from Tlan and a list of possible persons of interest for her and Theron to investigate. That worried Theron somewhat; Tlan was obviously more observant than Theron had previously given him credit for, as at no point had Kes ever explicitly stated that she and Theron were investigating anything. Of course the two of them had shown up at Tlan’s apartment in obvious need of assistance – and Kes with injuries, no less – so perhaps they hadn’t been nearly as subtle as Theron had thought. Or maybe she’d shared more intel with Tlan after Theron had gone to bed.

Theron and Kes sat down for what was probably the best breakfast Theron had had in years – if not in his entire life – and discussed strategy. In the end they agreed to check out Theron’s ‘friend’ first and go from there. While Theron made arrangements to meet Vreg Kes spent a few minutes accessing Tlan’s HoloNet account, researching the various leads the man had provided them.

Vreglan Fel held court at the back of the Slippery Slopes cantina, which was a bit of a jaunt from the Star Cluster Casino. Fortunately it was ridiculously easy to hire a taxi that early in the morning – there was a line of them out in front of the casino, waiting for the post-brunch crowd – and so it was that Theron and a pale, freckled woman were dropped off on the promenade out in front of the cantina a little over an hour and a half after they’d both woken up.

Slippery Slopes was arguably one of the nicer cantinas on Nar Shaddaa, if one was willing to overlook the two casinos. It was a regular haunt for SIS operatives; Theron had met up with Jonas Balkar there on numerous occasions, and because it was neutral territory – the neutrality the only thing the Hutt Cartel heavily enforced – he’d had the rare non-lethal run-in there with Imperial agents as well. (Sometimes in the interests of Republic security it was necessary to make contact with agents from the other side. It was something Intelligence operatives understood and their superiors overlooked. Most such meetings were not nearly as dramatic as the one Theron had had with Lana Beniko, however, and most usually didn’t have such climatic results. Usually.)

Vreg kept a table at the back, close to the stage and with a good view of the cantina’s exits. The Weequay was tall and whippet-thin, with leathery brown skin and steel-grey hair pulled back in a topknot high on his head. He was surrounded by an entourage of scantily-clad Twi’lek dancing girls who all scattered the moment Theron and Kes approached his table. Vreg spared Theron a brief glance before turning his eyes on Kes, his gaze immediately fixating on her chest. The holo-imager had cast Kes in the guise of a human redhead but had done nothing to disguise her figure, which was attractive but certainly nothing in the range of Vreg’s Twi’lek companions. Granted, Vreg usually spent half his time staring at Theron’s ass whenever the opportunity presented itself, so while the man was a lech he was at least an equal-opportunity lech. (The fact that he was also happily married did much to ease Theron’s mind on the subject. Vreg was often known to comment that his wife didn’t care where he got his appetite so long as he ate at home, and Aldanna was a fierce, terrifying woman who could crush her husband like a bug if he stepped out of line. Which he wouldn’t do, because he positively adored her.)

“Shan!” Vreglan Fel crowed, slapping one hand down on his table and rattling the empty shotglasses and tumblers that surrounded him. “Long time, no see! You’re lookin’ good, kid.”

“Thanks, Vreg.” Theron sat down across from the Weequay, angling his chair to provide himself with a line to the main entrance. Kes remained standing, her position enabling her to keep an eye on the open space behind Theron’s exposed back as well as both the side exits. It amazed Theron how naturally they fell into working together, both of them acting with a fluidity and ease that normally would have taken him years to acquire with someone else. Stars, he’d spent the past week with Anniatt, Itayo and Kord and hadn’t achieved that level of synchronicity, and it had taken him and Lana weeks before they’d stopped tripping over each other (and even then there had been the occasional upset, like when she’d effectively handed him over to the Revanites – but no, he wasn’t still bitter about that).

Lecherous nature and general degree of duplicity notwithstanding Vreg was a professional, and Theron only had to provide the other man with a brief outline of what had happened for the Weequay to get the whole picture. Kes frowned at Theron while he talked and he steadfastly ignored her attempts at telegraphing at him to shut up; she had agreed to meet with Vreglan Fel, but hadn’t been thrilled at the idea of sharing any intel with him. But to gain knowledge you had to give knowledge, and Vreg couldn’t help them out if he didn’t have some clue what the two of them were up against.

It turned out that Vreg recognized the dead human with the Black Sun facial tattoo and the Exchange assassin’s guild markings by description alone, and that enabled the Weequay to connect him to the others who had attacked Theron and Kes at Theron’s unsafe-safehouse. Unsurprisingly they were all Exchange assassins – all but the female Duros, the one without any tattoos or identifying marks. Vreglan didn’t recognize her description at all, but the others were all known to him.

“Why would the Exchange be after us?” Theron wondered out loud. He had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the cantina music, but there was no one nearby to overhear him. The cantina was busy – the Slippery Slopes was always busy; that was part of its allure because busyness made it easy to slip into the crowd and disappear – but Vreg’s reputation was such that if he wanted some space to himself, he got it.

Vreg cocked his head to one side, his topknot sliding over his shoulder as he looked up at Kes. She stared back at him impassively, her unfamiliar features seeming far more strange and alien to Theron than her blue skin and red eyes would have been. After a moment Vreg scratched at his chin and then picked up a half-full tumbler, knocking it back with a grimace.

“Might not be the Exchange you pissed off,” he said slowly, thinking out loud. “Their assassins work for the highest bidder. SIS poke their nose in someplace they weren’t wanted?”

Theron snorted. “When is that ever not the case? We’re SIS.”

Vreg shrugged, allowing the deflection. He couldn’t possibly be surprised that Theron wouldn’t be willing to discuss active SIS ops with him. His gaze drifted back to Kes – or, more specifically, to her chest. For her part Kes didn’t seem overly concerned, but after last night and her interactions with Jordel Tlan Theron found himself feeling a little on the protective side. He knew she could handle herself, but he was the one responsible for introducing her to Vreglan and he felt a certain measure of guilt knowing the other man was perving on her – even if he also knew it wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“Heard there was a bit of excitement down in the Duros Sector last night,” Vreg commented idly, pausing long enough to allow a server to come and refill his drink. The Twi’lek didn’t ask Theron or Kes if they wanted anything and Vreg didn’t offer to buy, and after only a brief disruption the server was gone again and he continued, “Buncha dead thugs, down by a HoloNet comm tower. I assume that was you two?”

_That was Kes, actually,_ Theron thought, but decided against saying it aloud. Let Vreglan think it had been the two of them who had taken out the fifteen or so goons who had been sent to apprehend them. The truth – that Kes had done all that damage on her own – was far more terrifying. Instead he simply shrugged by way of answer, Kes’s own noncommittal expression her only response.

“Riiiiight,” Vreg said. He took a long sip from his drink, dark eyes darting between Theron and Kes, then gave a shrug of his own. He had a datapad open in front of him and the entire time they’d been talking he’d been flicking through various screens, typing in the occasional word here or there, and then reviewing the results. “Well.” He gestured down at the datapad. “No one’s reported your dead Exchange assassins as missing, and there are no news reports on the HoloNet or any of the security feeds about a bunch of bodies – aside from the ones by the tower, I mean. Nothing near Club Ufora, nothing near your totally-secret safehouse.”

Theron grimaced. The SIS was good about keeping their safehouses secret and locked down, but the criminal underworld on Nar Shaddaa was even better at finding them. It shouldn’t surprise him that Vreg had recognized the location of the ambush as one of his safehouses. They’d gone to the Weequay because of his connections; it shouldn’t surprise Theron that those connections paid off in other ways, ways that Theron (and the SIS) might not appreciate as much.

“The scenes near Ufora were already cleaned up,” Kes said. Her voice was pitched higher and had a slightly breathy quality to it, one that made her sound young and girlish and somehow managed to match her freckle-faced appearance perfectly. Her strangely-inflected Imperial accent was completely gone. She sounded Corellian, with the same hard, flat vowels Theron was familiar with from repeated visits to the planet and exposure to its citizens. He managed to keep the surprise off his face by sheer force of will alone. Of course she could fake a different accent – _he_ could, after all. It wasn’t that hard, you just needed a good ear and a head for languages, and Kes clearly had both.

“Not by us,” Theron added. He wondered if the safehouse had also been cleaned up in the time since he and Kes had been gone. He figured it was safe to assume their unknown enemies had had eyes on the place, or at least would have noticed when their thugs didn’t report back (or didn’t bring Theron and Kes back to them, if Kes’s theory was correct that they were supposed to be captured rather than killed). It might be worthwhile to take a quick trip back to the safehouse just to see whether or not the bodies had been disposed of. Maybe they would even come across someone who knew something or had seen something.

Vreglan sat back in his chair, clutching his refilled tumbler to his chest with both hands. The datapad had gone dark although Theron was fairly certain he could still hear the occasional chime every time an alert came through. Around them cantina patrons danced and chatted as overworked servers made their way through the crowds with their trays held high over their heads. It was barely even noon and the place was hopping.

“I wish I had more to tell you, Shan,” the Weequay said, shrugging again. He jabbed at his datapad with one thumb. “I can look into the Exchange guildies who jumped you, but no guarantees that will pull anything up. I can also try to see what I can dig up on the Duros woman, the one who wasn’t Exchange. You never know.”

“Worth a try,” Theron acknowledged. He reached into the pocket inside his jacket, digging around for a credit chip, but Vreglan waved him off.

“Pay me if I get results,” Vreg said, and this time the look he gave Theron was one of embarrassment – likely at being caught at doing what was essentially a good deed. “I still owe you for Aldie.” Aldie – or Aldanna, as Theron knew her – was Vreg’s wife. No one had been more amazed than Theron when the two of them had hit it off, but their courtship had been brief and they’d been married close to a decade by now, which was effectively eternity in Vreg’s world. Theron’s world, too, for that matter.

Vreg tossed a comm onto the table and jerked his chin toward it, saying simply, “I’ll comm you on that if I get anything.” Theron nodded and pushed his chair back as he stood.

“So, they’re organized and they’re numerous,” Kes said as the two of them headed for the exit. He still found it strange to hear her now-familiar voice – now with her usual Imperial accent – coming from an unfamiliar face.

“And they have credits to burn,” Theron added. He stepped past a pair of Gamorrean bouncers in the process of tossing an exceptionally-inebriated Sullustan out on his ass. “I don’t know much about the Exchange, but I know their assassins don’t come cheap. I’m willing to bet those guys on the rooftop worked for the Exchange, too, so that makes how many, including the assholes who jumped us at the dead-drop? Close to thirty?”

“Thereabouts,” Kes agreed. She sounded less concerned than he felt, but maybe being ambushed by professional assassins was part of her everyday routine. It wasn’t routine for Theron.

“Where to next?”

The two of them paused outside the cantina, in the shadow of the gaudy gold statue of Karagga the Unyielding. A few feet away some intrepid entrepreneur had set up a stand selling various kinds of roasted meats on a stick, and the smell made Theron’s mouth water. Breakfast hadn’t been all that long ago, but he had a fondness for street-meat, especially when the strict “don’t poison the tourists” laws ensured he wouldn’t get food-poisoning from the vendor. No one would bat an eye if someone got jumped in a dark alleyway somewhere, but folks stuck puking and shitting themselves in their ‘freshers didn’t go out and spend credits at the casinos. (Folks who got jumped in dark alleys also weren’t known for spending much afterwards, but since the thugs who jumped them were almost certainly in the Hutt Cartel’s employ the Hutts would get their credits one way or another.)

In the end they decided to return to Jordel Tlan’s apartment. Theron had his (extreme) reservations, but the man’s security was excellent and it was the only safe haven either of them could think of on Nar Shaddaa. They could try to leave the Smuggler’s Moon, but to what end? They wouldn’t necessarily be any safer on another planet, and it was entirely possible all their leads would dry up off-world. Their enemies had attacked them on Nar Shaddaa, and that meant that in order to figure out who was behind it they would need to remain there, at least until they had a better idea of what they were working with. (That, and traveling off-world had the potential to be extremely risky. Theron had smuggled himself on and off planets in the past, but it was never a fun experience.)

They took the same route as last time, hiring a taxi to take them up to the service entrance behind the Star Cluster Casino. The service entrance and corresponding elevators were a little busier this time, with uniformed employees coming and going and a large delivery transport blocking one access point. Workers hurried back and forth carrying heavy-looking crates while someone a little higher up the delivery-person food chain had the privilege of using a pair of grav-lifts to cart larger boxes instead of doing things the hard way. Theron and Kes managed to score an elevator to themselves – narrowly avoiding having to share it with a trio of sweaty Gamorreans – and Kes keyed in the codes to Tlan’s apartment.

“You’re sure there are no tracking devices in that thing?” Kes asked for about the hundredth time since they’d left the Slippery Slopes.

Theron sighed and patted the pocket where Vreg’s comm was tucked away, and said – also for about the hundredth time – “I already checked. There are no devices.”

Kes made a noncommittal noise, settling back against the wall of the elevator with her arms folded across her chest. She had ditched the holo disguise, and Theron found himself strangely relieved by the sight of her blue skin and red eyes. He liked redheads just fine, but his mind had wrapped itself around a particular mental image of Kthira’kes’ina and the holo-imager disguises disrupted that.

“I can check it again, if you want,” he offered, for only about the twentieth time. “I’m pretty sure Vreg’s not gonna sell us out, though.” Not unless he wants Teff’ith and Aldanna to rip him a new one, he added mentally, but chose not to say it out loud. He had considered giving Teff’ith a call to see if the Twi’lek was on Nar Shaddaa, but he knew she wouldn’t thank him for dragging her into yet another one of his messes. She still hadn’t forgiven him for the last time. Or the time before that.

“Pretty sure?” Kes repeated. The elevator dinged as it landed on Tlan’s floor, and the doors slid open. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye as she moved out into the lobby. “Pretty sure isn’t –”

She froze, words dying on her tongue as she and Theron took in the sight of the room ahead of them. Jordel Tlan was flanked by a pair of men in dark leatheris armour, both of them standing idle with blaster rifles in their hands. The rifles were aimed at the floor – but the blaster pistols held in the hands of the men on either side of the doors were aimed right at Theron and Kes’s heads.

Theron took in the four gunmen and the terrified look on Tlan’s face, the first strong emotion he had seen the other man express that wasn’t in some way related to his creepy fascination with Kes and droids. Beside him Kes was still although he could feel a faint trembling in the arm that pressed against his side and he realized she was trying to decide whether or not she could attack before either of them got a blaster bolt through the head. When the trembling stopped Theron knew she had come to the conclusion that no, she couldn’t.

A fourth man came and stood next to Tlan. This man was tall and broad-shouldered, his appearance heightened by the well-maintained gold armour he wore. Theron saw a lightsaber attached to a clip at the man’s belt, and his mind stumbled over this fact, racing desperately to recall if there were any Sith he knew who favoured fancy gold armour. Nothing sprang to mind. Was this a representative of the Jedi Council? Were they finally coming after him over his choice to involve the Sixth Line on Ziost?

“Well,” Theron said, completely drawing a blank. “Shit.”


	6. For All I Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introductions are made and tempers flare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for some brief non-consensual (albeit non-sexual and definitely not graphic) physical contact

_“Well, shit.”_

Theron’s gaze darted from Jordel Tlan to the man in the heavy golden armour and back again before finally resting on the armoured stranger. The other four men in leatheris were a concern – particularly the two who stood on either side of the entrance, blaster pistols level with his and Kes’s heads – but Theron only had eyes for the man in charge. The armour was elaborate and well-made, with a heavy helm that completely covered the face; where the eyes should have been were glowing blue lights, and Theron couldn’t tell whether the glow came from cybernetics within the helmet or some kind of visor overlay. He knew for certain he hadn’t seen the like before.

“Jordel, darling,” Kes said, her voice remarkably calm, “You didn’t tell me we were expecting guests this evening.”

“A last-minute addition,” Tlan replied. Now that Kes had returned the big man seemed to be relaxing somewhat, his body language growing casual. He had changed out of the fuzzy robe Theron had last seen him in and was now wearing an expensive-looking tunic over a pair of loose trousers. His feet were bare. “I discovered them while investigating the leads you gave me. Mister …” He hesitated, frowning as he searched for a name.

“Sharnos,” said the man in golden armour. The rich, deep voice that filtered through the helm was unmodulated, that one single word not enough to hint at any sort of accent. Theron scoured his memory for the name but came up blank. Whoever the man was, he was either very low-ranking and therefore unworthy of SIS interest, or he was adept at keeping himself in the shadows. Theron hoped for the former but suspected it was the latter.

“Sharnos,” Tlan finished, relieved. “Mister Sharnos contacted me and expressed his interest in meeting you. He assured me he simply wants the chance to talk.”

Theron eyed the business end of the pistol less than an inch away from his temple and fought down the urge to roll his eyes. Yeah, this Sharnos really seemed like the talking type – didn’t everyone bring a pack of armoured thugs and a lightsaber to a little light conversation? Beside him Theron felt Kes shifting restlessly, easing her weight onto her right leg.

“Okay,” she said quietly, “Let’s talk.”

“Weapons on the ground first, agents – if you please.” This time around when Sharnos spoke Theron did detect a hint of an accent, but it wasn’t anything he could place. In a strange way it reminded him of Balkar trying to pull off an Imperial accent: close, but not quite right, like an actor in a Republic holovid trying to impersonate an Imp. Tlan’s mouth opened on a surprised squeak at the form of address Sharnos used, but he quickly closed it again, looking confused and concerned.

“We don’t please, actually,” said Theron, feeling Kes tense beside him.

The blaster pistol at Theron’s temple drifted downwards, aimed at his kneecap instead. The man on the other side of Kes mirrored his movements, the threat unmistakeable.

“Disarm yourself, Cipher Nine,” said Sharnos. He spoke as calmly as a man asking for a glass of water. “Or we’ll shoot Agent Shan.”

To Theron’s surprise – and Sharnos’ annoyance – Kes just started laughing. Across the room Tlan’s mouth was gaping open, his eyes bulging as he looked from Theron to Kes to Sharnos and back again, his face a mask of utter confusion and dismay.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Kes said, in a tone of voice that suggested the opposite was true, “but Agent Shan and I barely know each other. You can shoot him in the head for all I care.”

_Hey!_ Theron thought, but had the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut and his expression carefully blank. Sharnos cocked his head to one side, then let out a deep sigh and gestured towards Kes.

“Very well,” he said, sounding bored. “Shoot _her_ if Agent Shan doesn’t disarm.”

Both blaster pistols shifted until they were aimed at Kes. Theron swallowed heavily, wishing he could match her level of disinterest, but for all his own pragmatism Theron wasn’t the sort of man who would let someone else be harmed for his own actions – or inaction. He raised his hands and made a show of reaching for the pistols at his belt, telegraphing his movements so that the men on either side of him would know he was complying, rather than preparing to fight. Kes turned her head to stare at him and slowly blinked her eyes; it took Theron a moment to realize this was the Chiss equivalent to rolling her eyes, and he felt his cheeks redden with embarrassment. _Well, I guess we’ve figured out which one of us is the weak link,_ he thought miserably, lowering his pistols to the ground.

Kes shifted again, all of her weight going onto her bad leg as she suddenly spun on her heel and drove her good knee up into the gut of the man beside her. He doubled over, breath going out of him in a huff as she followed the move up by elbowing him in the face.

In the background Theron could hear Tlan shouting, but all of his attention was focused on his immediate surroundings. He quickly snatched up both pistols before throwing himself to the side – and deliberately colliding into the gunman beside him, knocking the man to the ground before he could fire off a shot. Theron hammered him in the face with the butt of his pistol, then fired off a quick succession of blaster shots in the direction of the two men flanking Tlan. The large man let out a squeal as he tried to duck behind the doorway. Theron didn’t have time to focus on them, all of his attention on the man under him, trying to wrestle his blaster away.

Then there was a loud, familiar-sounding snap-hiss and Sharnos’ voice boomed out: _“Stop!”_ But it wasn’t Sharnos who caught Theron’s attention: it was Kes, and the startled gasp she let out.

Theron froze, aware of the brilliant blue light that had suddenly sprung up a few feet away: the blade of a lightsaber, held close enough to Kes’s throat that she could likely feel the heat against her skin. Like Theron she was frozen in place, her eyes gone wide. She had managed to grab hold of a pistol – the one that had been held to her temple mere seconds ago – but as the lightsaber hummed and hissed against her exposed neck she let out a sound of disgust and tossed it to the floor, her hands raised in surrender.

“Had to try,” she said, sounding almost apologetic as she glanced in Theron’s direction.

“You said you weren’t going to hurt her!” Tlan cried out. The man was trying to cower behind the doorway, but he poked his head out in order to speak to Sharnos.

“I lied,” Sharnos replied, before his arm pulled back and he slammed an armoured fist into Kes’s jaw. The lightsaber switched off as Kes went limp, her body hitting the tiled floor with a dull thud. Sharnos turned in Theron’s direction, glowing blue eyes flickering strangely. “Your choice, now, Agent Shan: the easy way or the hard way?”

Theron glanced down at Kes crumpled on the ground at Sharnos’ feet. Her mouth was bloody, her body lax, but he could see the faint rise and fall of her chest. Unconscious, not dead. _You can shoot him in the head for all I care._ He tried not to take it personally. Making his own small noise of disgust Theron let both blaster pistols fall from his grip, then lifted his hands up over his head in an obvious gesture of submission. He realized then that Tlan was shouting, unintelligible cries that sounded more akin to an animal in distress than to a human male.

“Good.” Sharnos gestured idly in Tlan’s direction, and the man Theron had grappled with calmly turned and fired. The noise sounded impossibly loud in the close confines of the entranceway – somehow louder than Theron’s own blasters – and Tlan collapsed, a smoking hole in the centre of his forehead.

Theron was so distracted by Tlan’s death that he didn’t notice the hypospray until it was pressed against his neck. At the moment of contact he turned, surprised, to see the man Kes had fought standing over him, hypospray in hand and blood all over his face. Then there was a soft hissing sound close at hand as the hypospray activated. He didn’t have long to wonder what it contained: warm, fuzzy lassitude enveloped him as the sedative took effect, and the last thing he heard before unconsciousness claimed him was Sharnos’ voice issuing orders.

O o O o O

Sometime later Theron opened his eyes to a small, windowless room. He was lying on his side, one hand cupped under his chin in what he recognized as the ‘recovery position’ from the emergency first aid courses the SIS had made him take; it was the position first responders were told to put unconscious victims into once their injuries had been assessed, shown to minimize the risk of aspirating on vomit or otherwise causing further injury to oneself.

He wasn’t injured. His mouth was dry and there was a sweet taste on the back of his tongue, but aside from a lingering headache he felt none the worse for wear. He could already feel his implants working away at scrubbing the sedative from his system; he was familiar with that itching sensation deep within his veins that meant his body was cleansing itself. Seated on the floor beside him, her injured leg flat to the ground while her other knee was tucked up to her chest, was Kes. She saw him stirring and turned, red eyes glowing in the darkness.

“Hey,” he said. He took his time sitting up, waiting for the room to stop spinning before crawling on his hands and knees to sit down beside her. “You okay?”

“Never better,” she replied, and there was no mistaking the sarcasm in her tone. There was blood on her face and bruising had left her jawline purple and swollen. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, fantastic,” Theron said, equally sarcastic. He took in their surroundings and came to the conclusion that it would have been better to stay in bed that morning. Their tiny cell – duracrete blocks for walls and a heavy-looking metal door the only exit – was a far cry from the sumptuous guest room in Jordel Tlan’s private suite. Thinking of the suite reminded him of the last thing he’d seen before falling unconscious, and he turned, glancing at Kes out of the corner of his eye. “Tlan’s dead.”

She sighed. “I suspected.” She didn’t sound too broken up over it, but that didn’t really surprise Theron. She’d already proven herself to be a fairly cold and calculating person. _You can shoot him in the head for all I care._ Theron was surprised at how bothered he was by Tlan’s death; the man had sold them both out, after all, and he’d been creepy and uncomfortable to boot, and yet Theron was genuinely troubled by how easily Sharnos had had him killed. Maybe a bit of that unease was for Theron himself: because if Sharnos was that comfortable with having a man killed in cold blood, that couldn’t bode well for Theron and Kes’s own well-being in his custody.

“Any clue where we are?” Theron asked, pushing himself to his feet. The cell was small: seven paces from one end to the other, five paces from the door to the back wall where Kes was seated. There were no windows and the only door was solid durasteel, hinged and bolted on the other side where they couldn’t get at it. One thing kept drawing Theron’s attention: a small circular drain in the centre of the room, meant to catch water – or other fluids. The walls and floor were duracrete, easy to rinse off. It didn’t take a genius to realize he and Kes were in trouble - the kind of trouble that necessitated a torture chamber with a drain in the floor for blood. He’d seen horror vids that were less obvious in their foreshadowing.

“I think we’re still on Nar Shaddaa,” Kes answered. She remained seated, watching him pace the confines of their cell. He couldn’t tell if she was injured – more so than the bruise on her face and the bandage on her thigh would indicate, at any rate – or just conserving her strength. Maybe she had been awake long enough to have already done her own pacing and searching. “I don’t think either of us was out long enough for us to be off-world. And we’re definitely not on a spaceship now.”

“No?” Theron cocked his head, listening. She was right. The room was clearly sound-proofed (another ominous sign) but if they had been on a ship he would’ve been able to hear the hum of engines and to feel the vibrations through the floor. He heard and felt nothing. Wherever they were, they were still planet-side, and although he couldn’t be certain how much time had passed he felt confident in her assessment that they hadn’t been unconscious long enough to have been transported off Nar Shaddaa. He turned back to her. “Did you know that guy? Sharnos?”

“No.” Kes started to shake her head then stopped, grimacing, and put one hand to her mouth. Her fingers came away bloody. “I didn’t recognize his accent, either.”

“Me neither.” Theron debated mentioning what he’d thought earlier, that the man’s accent had sounded like a bad attempt at faking Imperial diction, but decided against it. He suspected a fake Imperial accent would sound different to her; she probably didn’t have a lot of exposure to bad Republic holovids.

Kes shifted, stretching both legs out in front of her, then asked, “Why would a Jedi be after you? Me, I get. But you? Aren’t you practically the poster boy for Republic Intelligence?”

Theron let out a sharp bark of laughter, surprising himself by the distinct note of bitterness he heard in his own voice. He quickly quashed it, but not before he caught the curious look Kes threw in his direction. He shook his head; he didn’t feel like explaining how deep into Chancellor Saresh’s bad books he was, or the impact that was having on his relationship with the Director of the SIS. “I don’t think that was a Jedi.”

“Not a Jedi?” Kes blinked at him. “You _saw_ his lightsaber, Theron. It was _blue.”_

“Yeah. I saw it.” He shook his head, dispelling the memory of the sight of that lightsaber burning against Kes’s bare throat, and explained, “It takes special training to use lightsabers, yeah, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a Jedi. Lots of people know how to use lightsabers.” _Me, for one,_ he thought, but kept it to himself. This wasn’t the time for Theron Shan’s Tragic Backstory 101. He’d known of some Mandalorians who kept lightsabers as trophies for every Jedi they killed; some of them even knew how to wield the blades they’d stolen. But Sharnos’ armour didn’t look anything like Mando armour, and while it was certainly possible a Sith lord might choose to use a blue-bladed ‘saber, he didn’t think that was what they were looking at. A Jedi wouldn’t have used threats of violence against them, however, nor would one have killed Tlan in cold blood. Besides, the jury was still out on whether or not Sharnos was even a Force-user: he’d had opportunities to use the Force against the two of them but had opted for threats and gunplay instead. Theron didn’t know what to make of any of this.

Turning his back to Kes, Theron moved to the door to confirm his earlier suspicions. Sure enough, the door was set so that the hinges and bolts were all on the other side, along with whatever locking mechanism kept it closed. He had a lockpick tucked away in his boot but it would do him little good if there wasn’t any lock to pick, and there was nothing computerized for him to slice. High-end implants could only do so much, and it seemed like their captors had some good insight into his and Kes’s skill-sets. Then again, if one intended to kidnap a pair of top-tier spies, it only stood to reason that one would know those spies would excel at lockpicking, slicing and other facets of espionage.

Just to assuage his own curiosity he ran his hands over the seams of the door, verifying the snug fit. He couldn’t even feel a slight draft coming in where the door met the frame: their cell might be well and truly air-tight, given the fit of the door and the lack of windows. That was worrisome, as was the drain set in the duracrete floor. Unfortunately his imagination suggested an awful lot of terrible things that could be done with an air-tight room and a quick and easy way to clean up messes.

He'd stopped being friends with his imagination years ago. His mind never took him anywhere pleasant.

“Well,” he said, turning back to Kes. “This looks bad.” She snorted, hand still covering her mouth.

Theron sighed and moved toward her, hunkering down to one knee in front of her. Up close the lower half of her face was one dark purple bruise and her lip was split and slightly swollen. She stared back at him, unblinking, and he looked at her bright red eyes and wondered how one checked for signs of a concussion in Chiss when you couldn’t rely upon differently-sized or blown out pupils. On the other hand: she’d been knocked unconscious, so … yeah, that probably meant she had a concussion.

“That was stupid,” he said at last, meeting her gaze. “Jumping the guard, I mean. You could’ve been killed.”

“It was a calculated risk,” Kes replied. She let her head fall back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes. “Sharnos went to too much trouble to track us down. His men weren’t going to kill us.”

“No,” Theron agreed, brushing the tip of his finger over the edge of the bruising on her face. She winced. “But they could’ve done a lot worse than pistol-whip you.”

“Like I said, calculated risk.” Kes shrugged lightly, indicating her lack of concern, then opened her eyes again. “You shouldn’t have surrendered so easily.”

Theron glared at her. “They were going to _shoot_ you.” Even as he said it he knew it wasn’t the real reason he’d surrendered. He’d already suspected Sharnos’ men weren’t going to kill them. He simply hadn’t wanted Kes to be hurt.

“So? Why should you care? We scarcely know each other, Theron. Weren’t you sent to Nar Shaddaa to _kill_ me? Why should it matter if Sharnos finishes the job instead of you or your team?” Kes glared back at him. “Or no, wait, was that _not_ a sniper perch where you and I first met? Was your teammate supposed to bring me in with the power of the Light Side?”

“Oh, fuck off, Kes.” Theron threw himself down on the ground beside her, putting his back to the wall. “I’m sorry I’m not as big a hard-ass as you.”

Kes let out a noise of frustration before growling agitatedly, “I don’t even know what that means!”

Theron blinked, momentarily distracted out of his growing anger. “Wait, what? Hard-ass? How could you not know what that means?”

“Basic isn’t exactly my first language, _human,”_ Kes huffed. “I understand the words independently, but I’m not familiar with the …” She gestured vaguely. “Colloquialism.”

“It means ‘tough,’ or ‘badass,’” Theron explained, then saw her raise her eyebrows at the second definition. Okay, maybe she needed more context and he should stop using random variations on ‘ass’ in his common speech, since it was clear this was still going over her head. He was pretty sure he’d referred to her as a badass before, however. “It’s what you did back there, what you said. Like how you didn’t give a shit if they shot me. Uncompromising.”

“I don’t see how that’s a bad thing,” Kes said slowly. She drew her good leg up again, resting her chin on her knee, and gave him a cautious look. “That bothers you, what I said? That I saw you as expendable?”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t it bother you, if I’d said that?”

She shook her head, looking confused. “No. It’s what I would expect you to say. You made me into a weakness they can exploit.”

“Shit,” Theron breathed, drawing his own legs up and wrapping both arms around them, hugging his knees to his chest. “You need a better class of partner, Kes.”

“Is that what you think we are?” Kes huffed out another small, soft laugh. “Partners? We’re not partners. You’re the agent the SIS sent to _murder_ me, Agent Shan, not some mythical hero riding in on a white gualaar to save me. You don’t get to act all high and mighty just because you’re too squeamish to do what needs to be done.”

“Squeamish? _Squeamish?”_ Theron had half a mind to rattle off a list of all the incredibly _not_ -squeamish things he’d done over his storied career with the SIS, but a hefty percentage of his work was very, very classified – and, anyway, if her heavily redacted file and notorious reputation were anything to go by she’d still have him beat, hands down. The fact of the matter was that the Empire and the Republic were vastly different governments with insurmountably different world-views, and he wasn’t about to feel guilty or lesser just because he’d been quick to capitulate when he thought her life and welfare were on the line. There was no shame in wanting to spare someone pain and suffering, and the fact that she clearly thought otherwise – well, that said a lot more about her than it did about him, didn’t it?

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” he said instead, to which she just laughed quietly. He scowled at her before adding snidely, “You know, I wondered why you were alone on Nar Shaddaa. I wondered where your crew had gone. I don’t wonder anymore.”

Kes snapped back something in a language he didn’t speak, but from her tone of voice he suspected he’d heard the Cheunh equivalent of “go fuck yourself, Shan.” She looked so stricken and angry that he seriously considered apologizing – he hadn’t meant to say it, the words had just fallen out of his mouth – but before he could so much as find the right words for an apology there came the sound of metal grating against duracrete as the door to their cell was opened.

Two heavily armoured men entered the room in single file, followed by Sharnos and then two more men in the same bulky silver-plated armour as the first two. With the exception of Sharnos the men all moved with stiff mechanical precision, blaster rifles in hand. They quickly pointed the rifles in Theron and Kes’s direction, and the two of them jumped to their feet, keeping the wall at their backs.

“Move to opposite sides,” Sharnos snapped, motioning for Theron and Kes to separate. When they hesitated – Theron might be pissed off, but he wasn’t about to abandon Kes – one of the other men stepped forward, brandishing a baton that looked an awful lot like the shock-stick that had been used on Theron earlier. The man gave the stick a twist and electricity hissed and danced off the business end.

“I don’t like repeating myself,” Sharnos said. He pointed one finger at Kes and then at the wall to his left, then repeated the process with Theron and the wall to the right. This time around there was no hesitation: Theron and Kes moved, although Theron was pleased to note that they both took their time in doing so.

With his back against the cold duracrete wall Theron found himself looking across the room at Kes. The distance wasn’t great – perhaps eight feet at most – but it felt like parsecs.

The four silver-armoured men turned their rifles on Kes as Sharnos turned to Theron and said, “Strip.”

Theron choked, forcibly repressing the urge to ask why or to confirm that the man had just ordered what he thought he’d ordered. With four blaster rifles aimed at Kes, however, his desire to be snarky and difficult went out the non-existent window, and after only a momentary hesitation Theron began stripping out of his clothing. His red jacket hit the ground first, followed by his boots and T-shirt, then his belt and finally his trousers. When he stood there in his socks and underwear Sharnos made another impatient “get on with it” gesture and, sighing, Theron removed those as well. Naked and suddenly aware of how kriffing cold their cell was, Theron pinned one of the other men with a glare and forced himself to affect a nonchalant air. This was fine. Naked was fine. He’d taken down a star destroyer while mostly naked. This was no big deal.

Three of the rifles were aimed at Theron, while the fourth soldier brandished the shock-stick in Kes’s direction. Sharnos looked at her and repeated the command.

Kes did that long slow blink again – and yeah, Theron was pretty sure that was her way of rolling her eyes – but did as she was told. When she finished and stood there in her all-together she put her hands on her hips instead of attempting to cover herself and simply glared at Sharnos. Unlike Theron she didn’t hesitate when it came to removing her undergarments; she had likely concluded that the same rules that applied to him would apply to her as well.

The soldier with the shock-stick collected the discarded clothing and boots, bundling it all up together in his arms before stomping back to the door. There was a brisk efficiency about his movements that seemed thoroughly inhuman to Theron, and on a hunch Theron activated the scanning component on his implants, searching the room for life-signs. He was expecting a read-out that would tell him what alien species Sharnos and his companions were. Instead the information that flashed in front of his eyes came back as a complete surprise.

The only organics in the room were Theron, Kes and Sharnos. The other four men weren’t men at all: they were droids. Remarkably advanced droids that resembled heavily-armoured humanoids, yes, but droids just the same. Theron had never seen their like before.

Sharnos, according to Theron’s implants, was human. Just a plain old human male. Out of habit Theron scanned Kes as well and was reassured to see that she was, indeed, Chiss. Not that he’d expected otherwise.

Sharnos jerked his helmeted head in Kes’s direction. “Remove the bandage.”

“She’s _injured,”_ Theron ground out through clenched teeth. “What, do you think she’s got a thermal detonator stashed away in there?”

Sharnos ignored him, as did the droids. One of them slung its rifle up onto its back and moved towards Kes, but before it could get more than a few feet away she ripped the bandage off her thigh and flung it at the floor. The droid paused and turned to look at Sharnos, waiting for further instructions.

“See?” Kes hissed, pointing at her thigh. The wound had reopened again and was bleeding sluggishly, red blood trickling down over blue skin. “No thermal detonators.”

“Marvelous,” Sharnos replied, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Search them.”

The droids split up, two and two, and in both pairs one held a blaster rifle aimed at Theron or Kes while the other proceeded to undertake what was arguably the most thorough search of Theron’s life. Mechanical fingers combed through his hair, poked at his armpits and forced his mouth open to look inside and under his tongue. Once again he had to bite back an acerbic comment – this time in the flavour of “Why don’t you check my prostate while you’re at it? I’m due for a checkup” – but he managed to keep his mouth shut aside from making an undignified squeak when the droid got a little too up close and personal. The mechanical fingers were _cold,_ and fuck, he wasn’t the type to put out on the first date. Only the fact that the droids were armed – and there was a lightsaber dangling from Sharnos’ belt – kept Theron from voicing his displeasure. He didn’t need to get shot or shocked or stabbed just because he had some rather strenuous objections to a cavity search. The droids, at least, were completely professional and impersonal about the search, and after a few minutes they were done and Kes and Theron were ordered to stand back at their respective walls again while one of the droids retreated from the room.

When the droid returned it was carrying the business end of a hose, and suddenly Theron had a pretty good idea of at least one of the reasons for the drain in the floor.

Ice-cold water blasted Theron in the face, then the hose was pointed in the opposite direction and Kes was cursing up a storm – in Cheunh and Huttese, if Theron wasn’t mistaken – as she got the same treatment. The two of them were sprayed from head to toe and back again, and by the time it was finished Theron was shivering and shaking while Kes was glaring bloody murder in the droid’s direction. He wished he could pull off the same degree of stubborn fury as the Chiss agent but their cell had been cold _before_ he’d been stripped naked and forcibly bathed with icy water, and he was too busy try to keep his bits from freezing off to really focus on nailing that whole “I’m going to eat your heart and liver” expression Kes was excelling at.

The droid took the hose out of the room while Theron stood shivering and watching the filthy water run down the drain. He wrapped his arms around his torso, hugging himself although it did little to alleviate the cold. A different droid stepped into the cell and set a small container on the ground before retreating again; from a distance Theron could easily recognize the silvery packaging of ration bars. It seemed that in addition to bath services they were to be provided with nourishment – although ration bars and MREs were a far cry from the fancy meals they had been served at Jordel Tlan’s table. Still, food was food, and provided the wrappers showed no signs of tampering Theron wasn’t too proud to tuck in.

“Welcome to your home for the foreseeable future,” Sharnos said. Two of the droids filed out the door, leaving the man and the other two droids remaining. He gestured broadly at the squalid surroundings, glowing blue eyes gleaming within his helmet. “I’ll give you both time to acclimate yourselves and then I’ll be back to ask you some questions.” He paused, giving extra weight to his words before adding, “When I begin your interrogation it would be in your best interests to answer me. _Truthfully.”_

Kes muttered something under her breath in what Theron was rapidly coming to recognize as Cheunh. He didn’t need a translator to know she was saying something along the lines of “Yeah, that’ll be the day” or possibly “Go fuck yourself, dickface.” Well, Theron was probably extrapolating with the last one, but the tone was right. He’d had enough people swear at him in foreign languages that he got the general gist.

Sharnos and the two remaining droids left the cell, the heavy durasteel door slamming shut with an ominous clank. Kes and Theron both hesitated, lingering at their respective walls before slowly and cautiously approaching the container of food.

Natural curiosity made Theron want to look, but out of respect and basic human decency he kept his eyes on the rations rather than the naked woman in front of him. All he saw was a significant amount of dark blue skin and then Kes was kneeling beside the box and cautiously picking up one of the ration bars to examine it. Theron mirrored her, choosing a bar of his own – the wrappers were all identical, with no indication of their flavours or nutritional components – and carefully peering at the silver packaging. So far as he could see the bar hadn’t been opened. He knew there were ways to get around safety packaging but frankly that seemed like an awful lot of trouble just to poison the two of them, especially given that Sharnos could have had them both shot or run them through with his lightsaber at any time. It was certainly possible that the ration bars were drugged, but the only purpose Theron could come up with was to make him and Kes more pliable – and his implants had scrubbers that ought to handle any such toxins.

Of course Sharnos had already succeeded in sedating him once, so what the kriff did Theron know?

Apparently of much the same mindset Kes simply shrugged her shoulders, tore open the wrapper on her ration bar, and took a bite. When there didn’t appear to be any immediate side effects Theron followed suit. The bar was dry and flavourless, rather like how he imagined sawdust might taste, but the process of eating enabled him to avoid thinking about how kriffing cold he was and the fact that he and Kes were naked and trapped with an unknown enemy.

An unknown enemy who had pretty much promised to torture them if they didn’t cooperate. Which, frankly, they weren’t going to do, so …

Yeah.

“So,” Theron said around a mouthful of bland nutrition, “Any guess who our host with the most is?”

Kes chewed thoughtfully before answering, “Not Imperial and not Republic.”

“Voss, maybe?” Theron suggested. It took him a few seconds to work up enough saliva to swallow, and the small bite of ration bar he’d managed to chew felt like a heavy rock sliding down his throat. “They have their own Force traditions, right?”

“He doesn’t sound like one of the Voss.” Kes nibbled daintily at her ration bar. Theron suspected she wasn’t trying to savour it, but rather that she was trying to make the pieces as small as possible in order to swallow it down. She chewed for a few seconds, then swallowed and said, “Maybe former Sith or Jedi, now aligned with the Hutt Cartel?”

Theron wanted to say that no Jedi would do such a thing, but honestly, what did he know? A childhood spent at the knee of Master Ngani Zho and an early eviction from the Jedi enclave on Haashimut did not exactly account for the entirety of the Jedi Order, and his limited interactions with his mother hardly constituted “knowing” the Jedi. Still, in his heart of hearts he didn’t think this Sharnos person was a Jedi, and he was starting to think the man wasn’t Sith, either. Damned if he knew what the man _was,_ however.

He and Kes finished their ration bars in silence. There were more bars in the container but neither of them reached for one; he wanted to wait and see if there were any ill effects from consuming the first bar before risking another. Instead he huddled on the cold hard ground – still wet from their earlier hosing – and tried to think of warm things. Tatooine. Rishi – yeah, no, maybe thinking about the last time he’d been imprisoned and tortured wasn’t the best way to get warm. Hot chocolate. _Man, I could really go for some caf right about now …_ His tiny bed in his tiny cramped apartment on Coruscant. Standing in front of Chancellor Saresh while she went into a blistering tirade about his latest fuck-up. _Yeah, never mind._ The winner’s circle on Manaan. Nox’s campfire on Yavin 4.

… the attractive and very naked Chiss sitting beside him …

_Fuck, Shan, get a grip._ He regarded Kes out of the corner of his eye, hoping he’d managed to keep his face expressionless, or at least that he’d avoided giving her any indication of the direction his thoughts had taken. She wasn’t looking at him; instead she was staring down at her hands, her own face schooled to blankness.

After a few seconds of blank staring Kes lifted her head and looked at him. She frowned, then sighed and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like _“Humans”_ under her breath before moving the box of rations and scooting closer. Theron blinked back his startlement as she slipped one arm around his back, squeezing in close.

“What … Uh … wh-what’s this?” he asked cleverly, suddenly terrified that she had somehow been reading his thoughts and was now taking the opportunity to mess with him.

“You’re shivering,” Kes replied, as though that ought to have been perfectly obvious – and kriff, maybe it had been. Their cell felt practically sub-zero and he was pretty sure if he tried to move his ass would be frozen solid to the duracrete floor. Also he didn’t think his teeth had stopped chattering the entire time he’d been chewing.

“And you’re n-not?” Actually, now that he was paying attention: no, Kes wasn’t shivering. In fact the arm that was slung casually around Theron’s waist was remarkably warm, as was the slim blue body pressed up against him. Kes was like a mini-furnace and after only a moment of hesitation Theron allowed himself to cuddle in next to her. (If anyone asked, however, he was _not_ cuddling. He was making the reasonable, rational and _responsible_ decision to conserve and … and … what was the word? _consolidate_ body warmth. For the sake of survival.)

“I’m Chiss,” Kes said, and again she spoke as though that explained everything. When Theron didn’t have a ready response for that she elaborated, “Our home world – Csilla – is ice-locked and our cities are buried in ice. This?” She gestured around the cell with her free hand. “Warmer than a Csillan summer. I’m fine. You’re not.”

“I th-thought you d-didn’t g-g-give a fuck about me,” Theron managed to spit out around his chattering teeth. With Kes’s warmth beside him he was starting to feel more comfortable – aside from the whole ‘naked attractive Chiss’ thing, which, again, _Shan, get a grip_ – and he felt almost pathetically grateful for her assistance, especially in light of their recent argument. She didn’t have to help him; she’d made it pretty kriffing clear where the two of them stood in relation to each other. “Th-thought I w-w-was ex-p-p-pendable.”

“Theron.” Kes drew back enough to turn her head and glare at him. “Do you want to freeze your arse off, or do you want me to continue playing living hot water bottle?”

“Hot w-water b-bottle,” Theron agreed readily. “Sh-shutting up n-now.”

Kes snorted but elected not to respond. After a few minutes she shifted enough to be able to wrap both arms around Theron, and he settled his head on her shoulder. If she was bothered by the touch of his cold damp hair against her skin she gave no indication.

“He’s g-gonna torture us, isn’t h-he?” Theron asked, after some time had passed in silence between them. He was starting to get his shivering under control; he was still cold, but Kes’s warmth was helping immensely.

“Yes,” Kes said, her head tilted downwards so that he could feel the warmth of her breath in his hair. “I suspect he is.” He felt her smiling. “At least, I don’t think either of us is terribly inclined towards answering whatever questions he might feel like asking, do you?”

“Oh, I dunno.” Theron affected a nonchalant shrug. “If he wants to hear my opinions on the latest season of _Zeltros’ Top Model_ I’m happy to oblige.”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Kes replied, sounding mystified. He could still hear the humour in her voice, and it warmed him as much as the physical contact did. He was glad they weren’t fighting anymore. He still thought he should apologize for what he’d said earlier, about knowing why she was all alone on Nar Shaddaa, but he was afraid that a return to that topic would made her angry with him again and he didn’t want her to pull away. Selfishly he kept his mouth shut, knowing he could apologize later, when he wasn’t in danger of freezing his nuts off.

“Holo-serial,” Theron explained, even though she didn’t seem all that interested. Before they could both fall into silence again he asked, hesitantly, “Have you … have you been tortured before?”

“Yes.” Her answer was short, her voice curt. It didn’t come as a surprise: she was an Intelligence operative and sadly torture was frequently a workplace hazard – likely all the more so given that she was a former agent of Imperial Intelligence. The Sith were known to torture their own people, never mind their enemies. It was like a hobby for them. Stargazing, calligraphy, collecting rare stamps, torture: traditional hobbies within the Sith Empire, Theron was certain.

Theron shied away from asking her if she’d every tortured anyone herself. He decided he could live without knowing the answer to that.

“Me too,” he said, after a brief hesitation. Although the circumstances were vastly different he was having a hard time avoiding memories of Rishi and his time with the Revanites. Satele had forced him to undergo counseling while he was on board her ship en route to Yavin 4, and Trant had followed it up afterwards with mandatory therapy sessions, but the experience was still raw, especially since everything that had happened on Ziost. His nightmares tended to twist themselves into an amalgamation of torture at the hands of the Revanites and the anguished screams of Master Surro, the leader of the Sixth Line Jedi Theron had brought to Ziost, whose mind had been overtaken by the Sith Emperor. His brain had a tendency towards playing back all of Theron’s worst experiences, and the last few years had served those up in bucketfuls.

“I know,” Kes said, voice soft. She gave him a gentle squeeze. “I read Nox’s report.”

“Oh.” Theron didn’t really have a response for that. He was curious about what Nox had had to say about him – aside from spilling the information about Theron’s parentage, apparently – but not so curious as to want to know what a member of the Dark Council thought about what the Revanites had done to him. Nox had seemed pissed at the time, when he and his crazy pirate husband had torn through the Sky Island compound to rescue Theron, but it wasn’t like they were especially close, and Nox _was_ Sith. For all Theron knew Nox had been pissed off because the Revanites got to torture him, instead of Nox himself.

“He was impressed,” Kes continued, unprompted. “You held up very well in his estimation. He said you were very ‘bloody-minded’ – Darth Nox’s words.”

“Yeah, well, I cheated,” Theron replied. When he sensed her confusion he reached up and tapped his implants lightly. “Helps with pain suppression and toxin nullification.”

“Oh.” Kes sounded intrigued, but didn’t press. After a moment she added hesitantly, “Lana also said you have a very disciplined mind.”

Theron snorted at the idea of Lana Beniko referring to _anything_ about him as disciplined, but let the comment stand. He knew what she’d likely meant, that his unique training and upbringing had made him into a more difficult nut to crack. The implants helped, but there was a reason the Jedi were often seen as so stoic and determined under pressure – it was tough to beat a traditional Jedi upbringing. He’d been taught to withstand torture since before he could walk, even if he hadn’t necessarily known that _that_ was what Master Zho had intended. To say that Theron’s childhood had been unusual would be an understatement of the highest order. Bloody-minded, indeed.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged after a moment. “Makes me more resistant to Jedi mind-tricks, too.”

Kes hesitated again before saying, “I’m immune to mind control.”

Theron’s first thought was that she was admitting to some sort of special Chiss mental discipline, but the tone of her voice didn’t indicate that she was sharing Chiss secrets. Instead, it sounded like she was letting him know something personal about her, much as he had done by explaining some of what his implants could do. He blinked a few times as he considered the ramifications of her statement, and how such a thing could be possible. Had she undergone training similar to his own? Was it a facet of Intelligence work or her upbringing on Csilla?

“It’s a long story,” she said, in answer to Theron’s unspoken question, while Theron continued to puzzle through her comment. He felt her shrug under him, her shoulder lifting his face as she moved. “Whatever this Sharnos can do, he won’t be able to force me to talk. And … the same thing that made me immune to mind control also makes me tougher and more resilient.”

Tougher and more resilient didn’t mean immune to pain, however. Just like with Theron’s implants, whatever enhancements Kes had simply meant it would take more pain and suffering before their interrogator would be able to break them. Everyone broke eventually – it was just that for Theron and Kes, “eventually” could be a long time coming indeed.

“Well, then,” Theron said, unconsciously echoing his own words from when he’d been removing the shrapnel from her leg, “This is gonna suck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured after how many times I had Kes run circles around Theron that it was high time she made some mistakes of her own. (This was also my reasoning behind Jordel Tlan's involvement: she trusted him and was suspicious of Theron's contact.)
> 
> Also, you can pry my "Andronikos Revel is bisexual" headcanon out of my cold dead hands. In this world he and Nox are happily (and crazily) married. So there.
> 
> Edited to add: I'm generally curious at this point as to whether or not my readers have figured out who the enemy is here. I can never tell if I'm being clever or obvious.


	7. Shivering and Shuddering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron and Kthira'kes'ina undergo interrogation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very mild trigger warnings for implied off-screen torture, as well as references to canonical torture (from _Shadow of Revan_ )

The droids returned sometime later and took Kes away. Theron had expected her to struggle – the Chiss agent seemed disinclined to play along unless forced at gunpoint – but when the pair of droids entered their cell and marched up to them, Kes simply pulled away from Theron, stood up, and let them lead her out without a fuss. It wasn’t until Kes was gone that Theron realized the droids hadn’t indicated which of them they were coming for, and that by standing up and going quietly, Kes had made that decision for them.

For a woman who supposedly didn’t give a shit about Theron, the Imperial spy had suddenly become remarkably protective.

Then again, maybe she intended to roll over on Theron. Maybe, once alone with Sharnos and his droids, she would align herself with them and leave Theron out in the – literal – cold.

And oh, kriff, but it _was_ cold. Without his ‘living hot water bottle’ Theron was forcibly reminded of the fact that he was naked, wet and trapped in a cell where the thermostat seemed permanently stuck on ‘Hoth.’ After Kes had been gone for about fifteen minutes or so – the time was difficult to gauge without windows or chronometers – Theron pushed himself up to a standing position and moved over into the corner. He put his back to the wall, pulled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around his bare legs. He was so cold that the duracrete blocks behind him gave off the illusion of warmth, and he huddled in place and tried to will his teeth to stop chattering.

He also tried, very hard, not to think about what Sharnos and his minions were doing to Kes.

Once again in spite of his best efforts Theron found himself thinking back to his time on Rishi and to the interrogation he had undergone at the hands of the Revanites. During the course of his training in Intelligence he’d been coached in how to survive torture – or rather, how to keep from giving up any intel while _being_ tortured. The main gist of his training had been the knowledge that sooner or later, regardless of implants, conditioning or preparedness, everyone cracked. The goal was to ensure that when that happened the information you gave up was useless, so thoroughly and liberally sprinkled with lies that it would be impossible for your interrogators to sift out anything actionable. Theron also remembered some discussion on whether or not torture was actually effective – studies (studies conducted by who, Theron was afraid to ask) indicated that subjects undergoing ‘enhanced interrogation tactics’ were actually _less_ likely to reveal intelligence than those who were simply questioned under more humane circumstances. Apparently, being tortured tended to piss people off, and pissed off people were disinclined to share things with their abusers. Who knew?

Theron’s training had been thorough and intense, but ultimately it hadn’t really prepared him for the reality of being strapped down while interrogation droids pumped him full of drugs and heavily muscled thugs beat the living shit out of him. Some Force-sensitives had poked and prodded at him as well, but Theron’s ‘disciplined’ mind had held up against their best efforts and for the most part he’d been left to the less-than-tender mercies of the Force-blind Revanites. In spite of the counselling and therapy Theron had received his imagination still tended to drag out memories of his experience when he was at his lowest, and the torture he’d undergone still featured in his worst nightmares.

And now he got to go through it all again, this time with an unknown enemy and no real way to steel himself against Sharnos’ questions. With the Revanites it had been easy, or rather, Theron had gone into the experience with a rough idea of what they would ask and what he had to keep from them. With Sharnos he had no idea what the man wanted, what he would ask about, or how he intended to get that intel out of Theron. If the man was Force-sensitive then chances were good he would attempt to use mind-tricks; when that failed, would it be drugs – which Theron’s implants would ideally scrub from his system before they took effect – or just plain old-fashioned violence? What kind of intel would Sharnos be after, that he had kidnapped both a Republic _and_ an Imperial spy?

Theron spent an unknown amount of time huddled in the corner, worrying and overthinking. Eventually the door to their cell opened again and the two droids returned, dragging Kes between them. Theron expected the droids to grab him next, but instead they tossed Kes to the ground – he managed to move quickly enough to catch her before she suffered a hard landing on the cold duracrete floor – and left, the door slamming shut behind them.

Kes was limp and sweaty, bare blue skin covered in fresh bruising and dried blood. Theron cradled her in his arms – trying and failing not to savour the scant amount of warmth she provided – and took stock of her injuries. In addition to the freshly-rebandaged wound on her thigh and the bruises she had received after her ill-fated escape attempt, she now had bruises all over her arms and legs as well as across her stomach and back; indeed, it would be safest to say there wasn’t an expanse of skin that wasn’t purpled or reddened. There was dried blood around her nostrils and at the corners of her mouth, but otherwise Theron couldn’t see any open wounds. He suspected that Sharnos had ensured that whatever violence the Chiss suffered, it wouldn’t be life-threatening.

Kes groaned and opened her eyes, blinking up at Theron. He expected her to try to pull away, but she just lay there, his arms wrapped around her, staring up at him. After a few seconds she patted his hand lightly, as though trying to reassure him.

“How bad was it?” The question was out before Theron could catch himself, and he winced. _What a stupid thing to ask._

“About what you’d expect,” Kes replied, patting his hand again. She shifted, struggling to sit up until Theron readjusted his hold and helped her into a sitting position. She leaned heavily against him, but he couldn’t tell if it was because she needed to or because she had noticed how cold he was and wanted to try to keep him warm. Kes cleared her throat before continuing, “I think he wants me to tell you how bad it’s going to be, so you go into your session anxious and frightened. So. Fuck that. It’s bad, you already know it’s going to be bad, but you can handle it.”

“How do you know that?” He found his mouth had gone dry; it took him a few tries to get the words out.

She gestured down at herself, indicating the bruising. “I know what Darth Nox said about you. You can handle it. You’re a” – a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips – “badass, Agent Shan.”

“Oh, look at you, all concussed and still picking up colloquial speech,” Theron replied, giving her a thumbs up. “Good job.”

“I’m a quick study.”

Theron nodded, a smile of his own twitching at his mouth before the reality of their situation came crashing back to him and he sighed. He gave her another quick once-over, instinct and training urging him to try to find some way to treat her injuries, but aside from the box of ration bars their cell was devoid of anything useful. He was good at improvising, but there wasn’t much he could do with flimsy wrappers and a bit of cardboard. The only open wound Kes had was the one in her leg, and that had already been treated and redressed; there was nothing Theron could do for bruises or her concussion.

Although Theron strongly suspected removing their clothing had been intended as an intimidation tactic – it was difficult to feel confident when your dangly bits were … well … _dangling_ – their being stripped had also served another purpose: it took away anything they might have used to save themselves. The lockpick tucked in his boot, gone. The garrote threaded through his jacket collar, gone, along with the slicing tools sewn into the lining. Their weapons had been taken before they’d been put into the cell, but Theron had had a few nasty surprises stitched into his clothing and he strongly suspected Kthira’kes’ina had been equally innovative with hers. With their clothes and armour gone, so too were their means of attempting escape. Theron wasn’t overly bothered by his own nakedness – Kes’s, on the other hand, gave him a bit of pause – but there was something intimidating about being stripped down to the bone and left to one’s own devices.

A sudden thought came to him, and he snorted. Back before he’d joined the SIS he’d parleyed his skills as a swoop bike racer into a chauffeuring gig on Manaan, and he’d gotten to know some of the men and women attending one of the local universities there. One such woman had been a psychology student – who, if Theron had been even remotely honest with her, probably would’ve had a field day with his assortment of neuroses – and she’d shared with him the details of a study one of her classmates was working on. Basically, the guy had rounded up a bunch of volunteers and offered them credits to spend some time naked and alone in one of the private rooms on the campus. The study participants weren’t told what was being studied – Theron hadn’t been told, either, and he suspected his friend hadn’t actually known – but they knew they were being observed. Still, had he known about the study he would’ve signed up in a heartbeat: a week’s worth of credits just to sit naked, by himself, and let some shrinks watch him for a few hours? Easy money. Secretly, Theron had always wondered if the nature of the study was to see how long it would take for someone to start playing with themselves when left alone and naked and with nothing but themselves for entertainment.

That was kind of what he felt like now, minus the fact that he wasn’t exactly alone and Kes’s injuries, while mild, certainly weren’t what he considered sexy. Under different circumstances, though, he definitely could’ve come up with some ways to entertain himself. Kes, too, if she was on board with that sort of thing.

“What’s so funny?” Kes asked, when he tried and failed to keep his amusement off his face. As close as they were it was impossible to miss the subtle expression changes they each made, the flicker of the eyes, the tug of lips or cheek muscles, the faint crinkling of the forehead. And leaning against him as she was, Kes would have felt Theron’s repressed laughter; had she not been able to clearly see his face he might have tried to pass it off as shivering.

“It’s stupid,” Theron demurred, shrugging.

“So? If it’s making you laugh, I want to know. Make me laugh, Theron.”

Sighing, Theron told her what he’d been thinking, explaining – without going into detail about how he’d known the woman – about his student friend and her classmate’s experiment, as well as his own private speculations as to the true purpose of that experiment. Kes spent a long time blinking at him before finally bursting into laughter, her forehead pressed down against Theron’s shoulder while her laughs huffed warm air against his chest. He laughed with her, glad that she understood both the silliness of his thoughts and the true purpose behind them, in trying to appreciate the absurdity in their situation.

“How long, do you think?” she asked him, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that she was still laughing he might have thought she was talking about their current circumstances – how long had they been held, how long would they be held, that sort of thing. But no, Kes was still chuckling, and that led Theron to the conclusion that she was still on the topic of the psychology study, because there definitely wasn’t anything humorous about their present circumstances.

“How long do I think they lasted before they started jerking it?” he clarified, just in case. Apparently that was another colloquialism she hadn’t learned – or she just wanted to make him sweat – because Kes gave him a blank look until he cleared his throat and said, “Uh, that means masturbating. _Kriff.”_

“I know what it means, Theron,” Kes replied, patting his cheek where he could already feel his skin burning. “I just wanted to make you blush. But yes – how long do you think they lasted?”

Theron’s cheeks were indeed on fire, but on the plus side: he wasn’t cold anymore. The fact that Kes was also warm – and naked, how could he forget that? – and curled up in his arms certainly didn’t help matters.

“I guess … it depends … on them?” he managed to squeak out, voice breaking in a way it hadn’t since he was a teenager.

“I wouldn’t last a day,” Kes decided, sounding confident. Theron made a strangled sound, somehow managing to blush even more, and she burst out laughing again and gave his cheek another gentle pat, saying delightedly, “You’re adorable, Theron Shan. Some spy you are! If sex talk makes you blush like this you’d never make it on Dromund Kaas.”

“I just … I don’t …,” Theron sputtered. He wanted to say _Hey, I can be smooth!_ like the liar he was but the words wouldn’t come. Kes wasn’t entirely inaccurate, anyway, although he suspected her reasoning was off. He wouldn’t make it on Dromund Kaas not because he was prudish and awkward – which he _wasn’t,_ honestly, _come on_ – but because he’d probably end up mouthing off to the first Sith lord he came across and they’d be blasting him off the Citadel in a heartbeat. He’d seen the deference Imperials paid to the Sith and it was never going to be something that would work for him, something he could feign for longer than it would take to interact with one. He’d managed to get along fine with Lana simply because she didn’t act like a Sith lord – even if she was one, and boy, had _that_ bitten him in the ass in the end – but he was pretty sure the majority of the Sith weren’t like her.

“Wait.” Kes drew back a little, peering up at him. Theron could see faint lines of pain around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, but he thought he detected a mischievous twinkle in her all-red eyes and honestly, if poking fun at him made her feel better he was willing to put up with it. To a point. “You’re not celibate, are you? You’re not a Jedi …”

“No, I’m not celibate.” He decided against elaborating on that statement; he really didn’t need to share his entire sexual history with an Imperial spy just to prove how very _not_ celibate he was. There’d been a period in his life when he’d mistaken sexual interest for genuine affection, and yeah, he could still be a little slutty sometimes – why not? Sex was fun, he was an adult, and while he might have been raised to believe that attachments were dangerous it wasn’t like he’d ever really taken _that_ particular lesson to heart. Overall, though? Theron thought he had a pretty healthy approach to sex, thank you _very_ much. He just wasn’t especially comfortable talking about masturbation when he happened to be naked and helpless in a strange cell, with only an enemy spy for company.

Although in fairness to Kes, he had been the one to bring the topic up first.

“Could we …” Theron cleared his throat and tried again, willing his blushes to subside. “Could we not talk about this anymore?”

Kes nodded, pursing her lips slightly before saying, “Of course. I apologize for making you uncomfortable.”

“It’s not … It’s …” He sighed and gestured at himself, at her, then at the cell around them. “I’d be a lot more comfortable if anything about this was consensual. It’s not like we just happened to meet up on Nar Shaddaa and decided to throw caution to the wind and … y’know, hook up.” _Because hooking up with an Imperial spy is absolutely the smartest thing I could ever do,_ Theron thought, unable to keep his cheeks from reddening further at the mental images - strengthened by the reality curled up in his arms - that immediately sprang to mind at the thought. “Neither of us is naked because we want to be. And you’re only huddling with me because it’s cold.”

Kes did that long, slow blink that he’d come to believe meant she was rolling her eyes at him, but the expression on her face – under the blood and bruises – didn’t seem to match. She didn’t look exasperated or like she was simply humouring him; instead, she looked like she was trying to figure him out, like she was trying to read something on his face or in his tone and couldn’t quite understand.

“Oh,” she said softly, tone husky. “Is _that_ why you think I’m doing this?”

Theron didn’t get the opportunity to parse her comment: the moment her words sunk in - really, _truly_ sunk in, along with the tone that accompanied them - the door to their cell was thrown open and two droids clunked in. Whether they were the same droids that had come to take Kes away before or different ones entirely, Theron couldn’t tell. They all looked rather similar. The droids stomped into the cell and Kes immediately pulled away, pushing up to her feet just as she had done the last time they’d paid her and Theron a visit. This time, however, one of the droids reached out to shove Kes out of the way while its companion pointed a remarkably humanoid-like finger at Theron.

“You,” it said, as Kes scrambled back to her feet, looking murderous. “Stand.” The other one produced a shock-stick and waved it menacingly between Theron and Kes, and Theron didn’t wait for the threat to be vocalized. He stood, fighting to keep a grimace off his face as he realized how stiff and sore he’d grown after spending so much time on the cold, hard ground. Kes made a small sound of protest but didn’t try to get between Theron and the droids, although he could tell from the way she held herself that she definitely _wanted_ to intervene. He filed that away for later consideration, along with her husky-voiced comment from before. He suspected he was about to need some distractions, and sorting out Kes’s interest - real? feigned? - as well as his own response to her promised to be very distracting indeed.

“Come,” the droid said, and they escorted Theron out of the cell.

O o O o O

As Kes had said, it was bad, but it was nothing Theron couldn’t handle. He was a little unsteady on his feet when the droids brought him back to the cell, but he’d suffered way worse at the hands of the Revanites. Stars, he’d undergone more intense interrogations from his mother and Director Trant.

Through it all, however – being strapped down and beaten by two blank-faced droids while Sharnos paced in the background – Theron couldn’t help but get the impression that this was simply their interrogator’s attempt at softening him and Kes up before moving on to the big show. Sharnos hadn’t asked Theron any questions, either; he’d simply paced, back and forth, back and forth just behind the droids, always within Theron’s sight-line but never coming any closer. In Theron’s training and experience there were usually a few simple questions to start things off right: name, rank, designation number if you had one, that sort of thing. Sharnos hadn’t asked any of that. Instead he had been silent the whole time his droids had used Theron as a human punching bag, leaving Theron with nothing but the restraints binding his wrists and ankles to the chair for him to fight against. It was possible Sharnos already knew all the answers to those starter questions - more than just possible, it was likely, given that Theron and Kes appeared to have been deliberately targeted - but the point of asking those questions wasn’t to learn information you didn’t already know, it was to get a baseline for your subject’s honesty. The fact that Sharnos didn’t seem inclined towards establishing that baseline - that instead, he simply wanted to cause Theron pain - was puzzling and concerning in equal measure.

Once it was over – Theron knew he had lost track of time and that he had no way of knowing whether his interrogation had lasted the same amount of time as Kes’s – he was released from the chair, dragged to his feet, and brought back to the cell. One of the droids threw open the door and he was tossed inside; Kes didn’t make any attempt to try and catch him – he outweighed her by a fair margin and between that and her own injuries they would’ve both ended up on their asses on the ground – but she did crawl to his side and tug him into her arms, glaring up at the droids until they retreated out of the cell. Something about those strange red eyes of hers made her murderous glare all the more ominous, as though flames might start erupting forth at any moment.

The cell door slammed shut, leaving Theron and Kes alone, huddled together in the centre of their cell. The room seemed colder, somehow, or perhaps it was simply that Theron was no longer in any condition to fight off the chill. The duracrete floor was still slightly damp, although he’d managed to land far enough away from the drain that there wasn’t a puddle under him, and the humidity made the cold seep into his bones, leeching the heat from him. His entire body hurt, every muscle protesting the shivers that wracked him from head to toe, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and bury himself beneath the covers. Then, he thought, he might be safe and warm again.

“They didn’t ask me anything,” he said, closing his eyes – one was mostly swollen shut, anyway – as Kes settled his head in her lap. His teeth were chattering, but it was as much a reaction to being beaten as to the cold. He _was_ cold, and for once Kes’s touch didn’t instantly warm him, but mostly he was just fighting off the inconvenient surge of adrenaline that resulted from being the subject of violence. If he could have _done_ something with that restless energy that would’ve been one thing, but he was tired and aching and trapped in a cell, and so it was just a waste of effort and he tried to will himself to calm down. He opened his eye again (the right refused to open) and stared up at Kes, saying again, in a tone of confusion, “They didn’t ask me anything.”

Strong, slender hands brushed through his hair as Kes curled her body around his. He could feel her legs under his back, propping him up; her bare skin was warm and soft, and he had to fight against the instinctive urge to turn and press his cheek into her stomach, to bury his face in her skin and hide. He hurt, but it wasn’t anything more than he could stand and his implants had kicked in midway during his interrogation to begin flooding his body with endorphins. It wasn’t the pain that undid Theron, it was having someone treating him with compassion and concern afterwards.

He’d reacted much the same way with Nox, after he’d been rescued on Rishi. _That_ had been embarrassing: breaking down and cuddling up with a Sith lord just because of some boo-boos. And yet neither Nox nor his husband Andronikos had said or done anything to suggest that they were the least bit ashamed of or bothered by Theron’s behaviour, nor did Kes indicate anything of the sort herself. Instead she simply stroked her fingers through his hair and cradled him in her lap, murmuring soothing nonsense in a language Theron didn’t understand. This aftermath was embarrassing, but it was safe: he was undone, but not in any sort of way that might weaken his resolve under questioning. Sharnos wouldn’t be able to comfort his way into getting Theron to talk, and if this was some elaborate ploy and Kes just a plant, Theron didn’t see himself opening up to _her_ , either. He appreciated her willingness to soothe him, but his instinctive - _childish and weak,_ a nagging voice hissed at him - response didn’t compromise him. He wasn’t going to just start spilling Republic secrets simply because Kes was _nice_ to him.

When the shivering and shuddering passed Theron collected himself together again and sat up, ignoring the way his body protested the movement. He wasn’t badly hurt. He’d suffered worse beatings. He just had some bumps and bruises, that was all. He just had to keep reminding himself of that.

“We need to get out of here,” Theron said quietly, as though it wasn’t the most obvious statement in the galaxy. He wrapped his arms around Kes and felt her return the gesture, her head tucked in under his chin. Even her hair was warm; dark blue strands had come free of her bun and brushed his shoulder and chest, tickling even as they left faint traces of warmth behind. His heart was racing and he knew she would be able to hear it pounding hard and too-fast inside his chest. He took a few slow, measured breaths, willing his heart to slow down, letting his implants do the brunt of the work at restoring his equilibrium.

“Yes,” Kes agreed simply. She twisted enough to be able to look up at him before commanding him, “Close your eyes and tell me everything you saw when you were outside our cell.”

With a shuddering breath Theron nodded and, closing his one good eye, he began describing the trip from the cell to the interrogation room, from the droid guards to the rough measurements of the corridors down to the colour of paint used on the walls. When he finished Kes asked him to repeat himself, pushing for details every few minutes, and then she described her own passage through their prison. By the time they both were finished Theron had a workable map inside his head – and he and Kes began to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story about the psychology experiment comes from my own university days, and no, I have no idea what my friend's hypothesis was, either. We came to the same conclusion Theron did, though, because of course we did.
> 
> I'm not completely happy with this chapter but I'm having trouble focusing and wanted to get it written down while the motivation lasted. If I pick at it for too long I'm only going to end up second-guessing myself. It's shorter than I would like but I wanted to get it done today.


	8. Moment of Weakness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some questions are answered - not all of them voluntarily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *checks last update* *sees it was October* *sweats profusely*
> 
> Potential trigger warnings for non-consensual drug use and mild sexual interaction wherein one person is incapable of giving consent (but likely would have, under normal circumstances)

At some point pain and exhaustion won out over cold, discomfort, fear and sheer bloody-mindedness, and in spite of everything Theron found himself nodding off, pressing the less bruised side of his face against Kthira’kes’ina’s shoulder. The two of them remained huddled together, Kes’s arms wrapped tightly around Theron’s midsection, sharing warmth and comfort. Kes’s body was still slightly warmer than Theron’s, but thanks to the low temperature in their cell and their shared body heat the difference was no longer so pronounced. Their close proximity had less to do with temperature regulation and more to do with comfort and support.

Theron’s sleep was restless, plagued not so much by worries or aches and pains as it was by his own sense of embarrassment at having fallen apart so completely. It was ridiculous: all things considered, he was barely injured, and he’d certainly been through worse. The Revanites on Rishi had been more thorough in their torture; he’d faced more immediately dire threats on the _Ascendant Spear_ or on Ziost. Stars, one could argue that being drummed out of the Jedi Order and left to fend for himself at the ripe old age of thirteen was worse than being roughed up and held in a cell. Kes had gone through the same beat-down and she seemed just fine, so what the kriff was wrong with him that he was such a mess?

Fortunately for Theron’s ego the Chiss woman gave no indication that she was the least bit embarrassed by his breakdown. She simply held him and talked him through it, and once he was calm enough to talk sensibly she threw some mental distractions at him by getting him to strategize with her. Unfortunately for both of them they still didn’t have a workable plan – at least, nothing more tangible than “kill everyone and bust out of here” – but it was enough to restore some of Theron’s lost equilibrium.

He was dozing fitfully when the metal-on-duracrete grating sound of the cell door opening woke him. He felt Kes tense under him, her arms tightening, and instinct had him wrapping his own arms around her. The two of them looked up from their huddle in the corner to see the door open and two silver droids step into the cell, dragging a man between them.

Theron’s overwhelmed brain had enough time to take in the sight of the familiar clothing – not quite a uniform, because they’d all been working undercover, but plain and serviceable in a way that _felt_ uniform to Theron – before the man was flung unceremoniously to the floor. He landed, facedown and unresisting, hitting the hard duracrete with a wet, dull thud. The droids turned and marched out of the cell, the door slamming shut behind them.

“No,” Theron said, looking over the man, willing the scanner in his implant to be wrong when it registered vital signs absent. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered over, one hand outstretched to find a pulse against Itayo’s pale throat. “No, no, no.”

He didn’t realize he was speaking out loud until he heard Kes’s cautious “Theron …,” followed by a shuffling sound as she, too, climbed to her feet and joined him. She knelt at Itayo’s side, fingertips pressed to where Itayo’s pulse should have been – and was not. The young operative was very obviously dead, his blue-grey eyes staring sightlessly, mouth still open in a silent scream. His face was battered, flaking crusts of blood around his mouth and nostrils, a pattern of contusions around his neck. Theron sank back on his haunches, staring down at the dead man, force of habit making him catalogue the man’s visible injuries. There was nothing Theron hadn’t seen before – bruises and blood on the face, bloodied knuckles, fingernails torn out – but seeing it all on someone so young, someone he had known and worked with, made his stomach turn. Itayo’s death had been hard and lonely and the unfairness of it all made Theron want to scream.

“We should …” Theron paused, drawing in a shaking breath. _Fuck._ “We should move him. We can’t leave him like this.”

The look Kes shot him was questioning, but she didn’t argue the matter. “One of your team?”

Theron nodded, bowing his head. He pushed back to his feet and moved around until he was standing at Itayo’s head and shoulders; Kes, divining his intentions, moved to Itayo’s feet. Together the two of them bent and lifted, carrying Itayo further into the cell to lay him down gently along the back wall. It wasn’t easy: Itayo had not been a small man, but rather tall, broad-shouldered, and heavily muscled, and his body was stiff and unyielding. It took both of them to move him, and even then Theron found himself staggering under the dead weight, abused muscles protesting his every step. If Kes felt the same she gave no indication of it, even though Theron was certain the effort had to be straining her injured leg. They carried rather than dragged Itayo’s corpse, setting him down carefully as though putting down a sleeping infant, and Theron set about folding the dead man’s hands over his midsection and closing those empty eyes. Only once Itayo was settled did Theron allow himself to rest, collapsing to his knees on the cold duracrete floor. Kes stood over him, one hand on Theron’s shoulder, the other clenched in a fist at her side.

“He’s cold,” Kes said, voice soft.

Theron tensed, hearing her words as a judgment against him – _how dare you leave your teammate here on the cold ground!_ – before realizing she was commenting on the state of Itayo’s corpse, rather than casting aspersions on Theron’s leadership. She was right: Itayo _was_ cold, cold and stiff. Forensics was not Theron’s wheelhouse, but he knew enough to know that the condition of Itayo’s body gave them some idea as to how long the man had been dead. The fact that their prison was also cold made it a little harder to discern, but Theron estimated his teammate had been dead for around a day, no more than two. He was pretty sure rigor mortis went away after about a day and a half or two days, somewhere around there. Some alien species experienced variable degrees of decay but Itayo was – _had been_ – human, and Theron had seen enough dead humans to have a rough idea how these things went.

“Anniatt might still be alive,” he said finally, standing again.

“Anniatt?”

“My other teammate.” He didn’t add, _The last one,_ although the words echoed through his mind. Once again the unfairness of it all struck him: Itayo had been young, shiny, eager to prove himself. Anniatt had only taken the Nar Shaddaa op because it had let her spend time with her family. Kord had been up for promotion to team leader. They’d had lives, loves, families who would miss them, hopes and aspirations and dreams and now they were all dead. Or, if not dead – he wouldn’t know for sure until he saw Anniatt’s body – then certainly nowhere good, nowhere happy. He forced himself to say, “She might still be alive.”

“She might be,” Kes said agreeably. She did not say, _She might also be dead._ She did not say, _She might already be dying._ She simply agreed with Theron while his own mind took him down all the dark paths of Anniatt’s possible fate.

Kes’s warm hand curled around Theron’s wrist, drawing him away from Itayo’s cold, stiff body, back to their corner of the cell. She had him sit again, his back to the wall, and curled up next to him, close enough that he could feel the heat of her much warmer body. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Kes’s arm slung around Theron’s waist, pulling him in close, her head on his shoulder.

“Did your teammate have implants like yours?” she asked him, after the silence had stretched out between them.

Theron thought about gesturing towards Itayo’s face, where the lack of implants seemed obvious enough to him, but then he realized that the other man was liberally covered in blood and it was possible that Kes couldn’t tell. It was also possible that the Chiss agent simply didn’t know enough about cybernetic enhancements to know that the kind of implants Theron had, the kind that did the things Theron’s did, needed to be hard-wired into the brain. Itayo could have had other enhancements – Theron hadn’t known him well enough to ask, but he’d always struck Theron as the sort of person who took pride in his own unmodified achievements – but if there were implants, they were hidden under his clothes and wouldn’t have been the same as Theron’s.

“No,” he said, realizing he hadn’t answered her. “Not so far as I know.”

Kthira’kes’ina made a humming sound, more an acknowledgement of having heard him than a noise of agreement, then, a note of caution in her voice, asked him, “Was he resistant to Jedi mind-tricks?”

“No,” Theron said again. This one he could answer with confidence: Itayo had not received the same kind of training Theron had had. The SIS was good, but Theron’s self-discipline and resistance came from his early years with Master Zho, not as a result of anti-interrogation techniques learned at some super-secret spy school.

It was a testament to how messed up Theron was that it took him a few seconds to see where Kes was leading with her questions, but once he did he stiffened as a wave of irritation swept over him. She was asking him if Itayo had had the same kind of resistance to interrogation and torture that Theron had, because if Itayo had been grabbed early on – possibly even when Kes was first making contact with Theron outside Club Ufora – then it was possible that Itayo was the reason Sharnos and his team seemed to be one step ahead of them. Itayo had known where the dead-drop was in the Duros Sector. Itayo had known where their safe houses were. Itayo had known all their strategies and operations procedures. If Sharnos had taken the younger operative early on, Itayo could have told the man everything he needed to know.

But then, if Itayo had known everything Sharnos had needed to know, what would have been the point in grabbing _Theron?_

Unless Sharnos had some idea of how well-connected Theron was, had known – or perhaps been told, possibly by Itayo himself – that Agent Theron Shan was privy to more intel than the average SIS operative.

Theron wanted to say that there was no way Itayo would have betrayed the team like that, but the reality was, he hadn’t known the younger man all that well. He had no clue what sort of training Itayo had had, outside of the basic anti-interrogation training all agents received. The kid had been a good operative, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was as stubbornly devoted to serving the Republic as Theron was, or that he had the willpower and self-discipline to hold out under torture. For all that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were, in Theron’s opinion, generally unreliable, the fact of the matter was that Itayo could easily have succumbed to Sharnos’ line of questioning. Or perhaps Sharnos had made the younger operative an offer: information in exchange for his life, or the life of a loved one, or even money or power or any number of things that might have, in the moment, seemed appealing to Itayo. Theron didn’t know. Theron had no way of knowing. Even the best agents had their moment of weakness.

Kes didn’t say anything further, simply letting Theron follow her line of questioning to its reasonable end and come to his own conclusions. She let out a small hum of sympathy when he nodded and pressed his forehead against her shoulder, her hand coming up to rake fingers through his hair. It would have been easy for her to draw unfavourable comparisons between the Republic SIS and Imperial Intelligence, or to cast doubt on Itayo’s loyalty to the team, but she did none of those things.

Theron was just starting to doze off again when the cell door opened once more, this time admitting Sharnos and his four heavily-armoured droids. Once again the droids were armed with blaster rifles; once again, Sharnos gave the curt order for Theron and Kes to retreat to their separate sides, and the droids brandished their rifles in Theron’s and Kes’s directions until they complied.

Sharnos’ glowing blue eyes took in the sight of Itayo’s corpse lined up against the rear wall of the cell and his mouth twitched upwards in a faint semblance of a smile but he made no comment. Instead he motioned at the droids, and two broke off to exit the cell while the remaining two kept their rifles trained on the prisoners. After a few seconds the first two droids returned, weapons slung across their backs; each had one arm extended, a hypospray gripped in their hand. The droids split up, one moving toward Theron, the other turning to Kes.

“Oh _fuck_ no,” Theron said, the words coming unbidden to his lips as the droid moved in close, its free hand reaching to grasp Theron’s arm. Reflex made him step back until he bumped into the rough wall of duracrete behind him, but he still tried to dodge the hypospray. He had no intention of being dosed with … whatever … was in that thing. He’d had enough of being drugged, thanks.

Sharnos let out an annoyed sound, something suspiciously close to a _tsk,_ but it wasn’t the droid on Theron’s side that acted, it was the one on Kes’s side. In a blur of motion it struck out with its empty hand, fist colliding with Kes’s midsection with enough force to cause her to fold over with a wheezy-sounding whimper. The droid caught her with its hand around her throat, hauling her back upright and shoving her back against the wall hard enough that Theron heard the thunk of her head against the duracrete. She winced, but did not resist.

Sharnos, seeing the way Theron froze the instant the droid struck out at Kes, gave him a hard smile. “Any further objections, Agent Shan?”

“I have a list,” Theron bit out through clenched teeth, then winced, half-expecting the droid to strike Kes again. It didn’t, just held her in place as the other droid continued to advance on Theron. This time Theron didn’t resist, and the hypospray pressed against the soft skin of his throat; across the cell, the other droid mirrored the one on Theron, and there was a dual hissing sound as the two hyposprays were deployed.

The tunnel vision and dizziness were instantly familiar, but this time it struck almost instantaneously, his world immediately going blurry, then dark. The droid let go of his wrist and it seemed that that had been the only thing holding Theron upright, as his knees immediately buckled and he went crashing to the ground. Even the sensation of hitting the cold, hard floor felt muted; he should have felt the impact of his hands and knees against the duracrete, but instead it registered as little more than a gentle bump, like landing on a hard mattress. He tipped over onto his side, head smacking against the floor – the side of his head with the black eye and bad bruising, and yes, _that_ he felt – and then a hand wrapped around his throat, lifting his head enough that he could feel lips against his ear. He felt a rush of warm air before he heard the voice in his ear, and it sounded like it came from far away rather than right beside his head.

Sharnos’ voice, filled with mockery: “I’ll let the serum prime you up, Agent Shan, and then you and I are going to have a little chat.”

Then Sharnos released his grip on Theron’s throat and Theron sagged back down to the ground, the only sound that of his own laboured breathing.

Much like it had happened before in the Duros Sector, Theron felt his body slip away from him. There was a strange metallic taste in his mouth, somehow both like and yet unlike the copper tang of blood, and his tongue felt grotesque and swollen, a foreign appendage that had taken up residence inside his head. His breathing was too loud but at the same time everything else was muted, drowned out by a persistent buzzing in his ears that was so strong he could feel it echoing around inside his skull and ratcheting down his spine. Once again his body was no longer his: his mouth moved, his limbs twitched, his fingers scrabbled uselessly over the rough, patchy duracrete beneath him. He couldn’t make himself stop, even as he felt the duracrete turn slick under his fingertips and the scent of blood filled his nostrils.

He knew he was talking but he couldn’t have said what he was talking about if his life depended upon it (and perhaps, in a way, it did). His lips moved, he could feel his swollen tongue pushing out words, but both his mind and his ears were disconnected in such a way that he had no clue what was spilling out of his mouth nor could he hear himself speaking. He was restless and exhausted and his skin crawled as though he really _had_ picked up some kind of vermin back in that flophouse.

Dimly, distantly, Theron became aware of another voice. It started out as a new note mixed in with the buzzing, indistinct and indecipherable, but grew to something warm and familiar and just faintly accented. He couldn’t make out the words, but he could hear his name, over and over again.

He clawed at the ground, unable to stop his hands from moving. He was still talking – or maybe not talking, maybe just making animalistic keening sounds – and the cell began to appear in brief flashes although everything remained blurry and far too dark. There was a terrible pressure inside his head, rather as though his head was caught in a vise, and that vise was closing, slowly and relentlessly, and in a matter of seconds his head would pop like an over-ripe melon.

_Theron._

He curled in on his side, only to find himself drawn upright and pulled in against something soft and warm. He tried to pull away, to free himself, but he was wrapped in soft bands of durasteel that wouldn’t let him go.

“Theron.”

The bands withdrew, releasing him, but then his hands were caught up, pulled away from their ceaseless scratching. His fingers twitched; once again he tried to free himself, and once again he was held tight.

_“Theron.”_ Warm skin pressed against his forehead. There was a puff of air in his face, an exhalation that sounded perilously close to a sob. His hands were squeezed, his fingers wet and sticky with what he thought might be blood. “Theron, you need to stop talking. Please, Theron, _stop talking.”_

He recognized Kes’s voice. He wanted to comply; his throat ached as though he’d been screaming and his jaw was sore. Didn’t she understand, he wanted to stop talking? He was _trying._

_“Please,_ Theron, _stop.”_

He couldn’t. He couldn’t. Why couldn’t he stop talking?

Theron’s hands were freed. An instant later he felt his cheeks cupped, his face drawn forward, and then –

Lips, warm and dry and slightly chapped, pressed against his own.

Theron had a brief moment of confusion, and then, like a switch being flipped, the relentless drive to speak was replaced by the sensation of Kes’s mouth against his. She held his face, directing the kiss, but he poured himself into it, grasping on as if she were a lifeline and he a drowning man. He brought his hands up, first to the lines of her jaw, then a trace of his fingertips along her neck and over her shoulders. When he tried to move lower – to stroke her sides, palm a bare breast – her hands caught his and pulled them away, and she twined her fingers through his so that he couldn’t pull free. Frustrated by his inability to touch her Theron poured more of himself into their kiss, the tip of his tongue pushing between her lips only for her to pull back, shake her head briefly, and resume kissing him. He let out a disgruntled noise that got swallowed by her mouth, but when Kes deepened the kiss, using her grip on his hands to draw him in closer, he let her seize control. His mind was quieting, the terrible restlessness and urge to talk drowned out by the contact between them. It was as though he could only focus on one thing, and where before that one thing had been filling the silence with endless, rambling speech, now it was giving in to an urge that - if he was being completely honest with himself - had been building since the moment he and Kthira’kes’ina first met on the sniper’s perch outside Club Ufora.

Reality reasserted itself: the cold, hard floor beneath him; the warm body pressed against his; the way every bone and muscle and fibre in his body seemed to ache and how that ache was now being matched with a new, deeper, stinging pain in his hands.

Theron gasped, blinking, and pulled away. Up close – up very, _very_ close – Kes blinked back, bright red eyes intent upon his face. There was blood on her cheeks, slick and red and smeared along her jawline and down the sides of her neck.

_“Shit,”_ Theron said, with deep conviction.

He could see and hear again, the blurriness and the dull roaring fading away. He blinked a few more times and stared down at his hands, at how the tips of his fingers were raw and bleeding. He’d scraped himself bloody on the duracrete floor, and, like his speech, he’d had no way to stop it.

“Shit,” he said again, and licked his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Kes said, sinking back to sit on her heels. She didn’t so much sound apologetic as she sounded resigned, and Theron looked up at her and couldn’t stop himself from blinking yet again, trying to clear the blurriness from his eyes. His head ached and he felt tired, so tired. He was done with all of this.

“What … I don’t …” He trailed off, startled by how rough his voice sounded, like he’d been screaming himself hoarse or gargling shards of transparisteel.

Kes raked a hand through her hair, tugging a few dark blue strands loose from her bun. “You wouldn’t stop talking. I’m sorry.”

“That is …” Theron swallowed hard, trying to dredge up some saliva. Kriff, his throat hurt. “That was an interesting way to get me to shut up.” He’d had a lot of people ask him _(tell him – demand him)_ to shut the fuck up over the years, but this was probably the first time anyone had ever actually _kissed_ him into silence. ‘Interesting’ was probably not the right word for it, but now was not the ideal time for him to go searching for a more appropriate descriptor.

“I’m sorry,” Kes said again, but there was a faint smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. “I wasn’t intending to take advantage, but it seemed preferable to you spilling state secrets.” Something darkened her face and Theron thought she was about to elaborate on her comment, but her lips pressed together in a hard, thin line and she gave her head a small shake. “You didn’t seem to have any idea what you were saying.”

_Shit._ Theron swallowed again, wincing against the pain in his throat, but he aimed for a nonchalant tone of voice when he asked, “And what was I saying? Anything interesting?”

“Nothing coherent.” Kes shrugged, but Theron thought she looked uncomfortable, and he felt a sinking sensation as he considered all the things he knew that he absolutely should _not_ have revealed to an Imperial agent, regardless of how “retired” she was supposed to be.

_“Kes.”_

Kes grimaced, swearing under her breath, then sighed and looked away. When she glanced back to see that Theron was studying her intently she seemed to flinch a little before saying, almost hesitantly, “I tried not to listen. It sounded … personal.” She looked away again and added, “You wanted to stay. You didn’t want to be … turned away? You said you could do better. _Be_ better. You were begging someone named Tilly not to send you away.”

Now it was Theron’s turn to flinch, because he knew exactly what the Chiss agent had overheard. Not ‘Tilly,’ but ‘Till’in,’ as in ‘Master Till’in,” the Master Jedi who had sat with him on Haashimut and sent him away after informing Theron that in spite of his powerful Force-wielding ancestors he was not Force-sensitive himself and never would be. The Kel Dor had been kind and sympathetic, but in the end there was no amount of pleading that could convince the Jedi to let Theron remain at their enclave. His guardian and mentor, Master Zho, had not returned to retrieve Theron, nor had his mother come to find him. He’d been left on his own, to fend for himself, ever since. He’d been thirteen. At the time he’d thought it was the end of his whole world; little had he known that the world would end for him in a lot of different ways, beginning with Haashimut and continuing on through Master Zho’s death on the _Sun Razer_ and on through Rishi, Revan and Ziost, which had seen the _literal_ end of a world. There might have been other, bigger endings in Theron’s life, but being made to leave Haashimut - and thus, put to bed all the hopes and dreams his mentor and mother had had for him - had been the hardest. Everything always felt so much bigger, harder and more important when you were a child.

“Oh,” he said softly, ducking his head. “Yeah. That was … personal.”

“I tried not to listen.” Kes sounded almost defensive. “I didn’t want to know.”

Theron gave her a hard look even as he tried to will away the sick feeling in his gut that she had learned something so … _raw_ about him. The details about his life prior to becoming an SIS agent were deliberately sparse; Director Trant had made sure Theron’s file was as bare-bones as possible, so as to ensure his connections to Satele Shan and Jace Malcom weren’t included. There was always someone - Republic, Imperial, Hutt Cartel, neutral, it didn’t matter - who would see that file, recognize the names in it, and decide to use Theron to their own end simply because of who his parents were. Of course, that information – or some of it, at least – was already out there, but outside of a handful of people no one knew about his time on Haashimut, or about his childhood with Master Ngani Zho.

“Hence the kiss,” Kes said, a little weakly.

“Yeah, about that.” Theron settled his hands in his lap, trying to ignore the stinging pain in his fingertips in favour of focusing on something that didn’t make him feel weak and embarrassed. “How come you had the presence of mind to try that? Did Sharnos’ droid buddies hit you with the same hypospray? Why weren’t _you_ affected?”

If she was bothered by the accusatory note in Theron’s voice Kes gave no sign of it. He supposed she’d probably been accused of worse things in her time. She _was_ a (former) Imperial agent, after all.

“I was,” she replied, giving another little shrug.

“Then why was _I_ the one singing the Greatest Hits of Theron Shan’s Shitty Childhood instead of you? Why weren’t you spilling all _your_ shitty, fucked-up secrets?”

“That was from your _childhood?”_ Kes looked horrified, and Theron realized what he had said, that he hadn’t meant to provide any context for his rambling. She seemed genuinely upset, and somehow that was even more troubling, that he’d given her enough information to know how messed up things had been for him – and now it was out there and she knew about it. Stars, what had he told her? What had she pieced together? Why’d he have to go and have this little heart-to-heart with an Intelligence officer instead of some idiot Gamorrean?

“Yeah,” Theron said, fuming, “that was from when I got kicked –” His eyes widened and he clapped both hands over his mouth, heedless of the pain that caused when his torn fingers came into contact with his split lip. Behind his hands, however, he kept talking, answering Kes’s question in spite of the fact that he had had absolutely no intention of doing so. When Kes realized what was happening she put her own hands over Theron’s mouth, pressing down hard enough that the words were too muffled to hear.

“Stop,” she whispered, red eyes huge and anxious.

“I can’t,” Theron said, the words mumbled into her palm. He kept talking, the entire story of Master Zho, Haashimut and being drummed out of the Jedi Order spilling out while inside his head he was screaming at himself to shut the fuck up. Kes kept her hands in place and started up a little humming, the way a child might do when her parents were telling her something she didn’t want to hear. _La la la I can’t hear you!_

Finally the words ran down and Theron fell silent. The Chiss woman waited a few more heartbeats to be certain that Theron was done talking before finally pulling her hands away. He licked his lips, tasting blood – likely his own, either from his split lip or from when she’d been holding his bloody hands in hers – and drew in a long, shuddering breath. This was bad. This was worse than bad, this was a disaster, a nightmare. His implants – his Jedi training – all of that was supposed to cancel out this sort of thing. The implants were supposed to scrub toxins out of his bloodstream; his training was supposed to make his mind more disciplined and harder to control. Why wasn’t it working? Or maybe the implants and the Jedi training _were_ working, and Theron was actually demonstrating some measure of constraint, without which he would still be reliving and revealing every childhood trauma, state secret and piece of intel he’d every collected over the course of his long and storied career with the SIS?

He had just told an enemy spy a story even his closest friends in the SIS didn’t know. The fact that Kes had had the decency to try and drown him out didn’t erase the fact that the words had sprung unbidden from his lips in response to a single innocuous question from her, and _he had not been able to stop himself._

“Ask me a question,” he whispered, conscious of the panicky notes in his voice and utterly unable to hide them. “Something harmless, something you already know.”

Kes, glowing red eyes the size of dinner plates, nodded and said, “Lie to me” before asking, “Who’s your mother?”

“Satele Shan,” Theron said instantly, instead of whatever made-up name he’d intended. “Shit.”

“Who’s the current director of the SIS?”

Theron glowered at her, but fuck it, Kes probably already knew the answer; he’d suspected as much already. Nonetheless he tried to lie, and nonetheless he immediately replied with, “Marcus Trant. _Fuck.”_

Kes’s eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, pursing her lips. Then, deliberately: “Who’s your father?”

“Jace Malcom,” Theron replied instantly, but not before – thank goodness – Kes’s hands slapped back over his mouth, muffling his response. He scowled at her, genuinely angered that she would go there, but the look she gave him was unapologetic.

“I had to know,” she said with another shrug.

“Who my father is?”

“No, you _umron,”_ Kes snapped, “Whether or not you could actually resist the compulsion to answer.” There were bright spots of colour high on her cheeks, turning her blue skin an interesting shade of purple. Her eyes were flashing, making him think of embers, of fire – something dangerous, something he should avoid touching. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before elaborating, “With the other questions you knew I already knew the answer, so there was no harm in you telling me. You might have thought you wanted to say something different, to fight against the urge to answer, but there were no stakes involved. That doesn’t tell us anything. But the secret of your father’s identity? You don’t want me to know that, so I knew you’d fight against answering. That _does_ tell us something.”

“Yeah.” Theron closed his eyes and took a few steadying breaths himself, his mind spinning. He let out an explosion of air and opened his eyes again, the right eyelid still too swollen to open all the way. “It tells us we’re fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"Umron"_ is Herglese (Giju) for "an idiot who's so stupid he doesn't realize he's an idiot"


	9. Run On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theron puts both his Jedi training _and_ his spy training to use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for humiliation and punishment; as someone who is intensely uncomfortable with embarrassment, even in secondhand form, I wanted to warn for this, especially given the added context of the situation Theron and Kes are in here

Sharnos and his droids returned without fanfare a short while later. This time around there was no big production of separating Theron and Kes into opposite sides of the cell, nor were blaster rifles or shock-sticks brandished in their faces. Instead, two droids marched into the cell ahead of Sharnos, with the other two droids remaining out in the hallway; one droid grabbed hold of Theron’s arm and hauled him to his feet while the other repeated the process with Kes. Instincts saw Theron trying to free himself, but the droid’s grip was solid, durasteel fingers digging into Theron’s bicep.

Before they were separated Kes leaned in close to Theron and hissed in his ear, “Tell me everything you know about Darth Nox.” The droids yanked the two of them apart, but not before Kes’s command was implanted in Theron’s mind, and within seconds the compulsion to babble endlessly on the topic took over.

Theron and Kes were led out of their cell, and once they were out in the corridor beyond two of the droids turned in one direction while the other two, the ones dragging Theron, moved down the opposite hall. Theron didn’t have a chance to try and sort out where they were taking Kes; instead he was made to stumble after Sharnos, the man’s gold armour-clad back stiff and straight as he stalked away.

This was the first time Theron and Kes had been taken from their cell at the same time, and Theron found the idea of being separated from the Chiss agent to be strangely distressing. When he’d been taken out for interrogation the first time he’d gone with the relative certainty that when he was returned to his cell Kes would be there waiting for him, unharmed – or as unharmed as could be expected, under the circumstances. Now he had no idea what to expect, especially since he was marched off in the direction of the interrogation room whereas Kes was being led somewhere else.

Habit and training made Theron pay close attention to his surroundings, even as he found himself rattling off a seemingly endless series of facts and theories about the Dark Council member known as Darth Nox. As best as he and Kes had been able to determine they were in some sort of underground bunker, built below the gaudier, glitzier “street” levels of Nar Shaddaa. He couldn’t tell precisely where they were as the layout didn’t match up with any of the maps he had memorized of the Smuggler’s Moon, but if he had to guess he would say they were somewhere in the vicinity of the Industrial Sector. Much like their cell the walls and floors of the corridor were poured duracrete, grimy and darkened from age and neglect. The overhead lighting was fluorescent, some of the bulbs flickering and flashing, with the incessant buzzing that accompanied such fixtures. The area had a dank, underground feel to it that made the air feel vaguely claustrophobic, and even the metallic clunks of the droids’ footsteps on the ground seemed muted and hushed, as though the sounds were muffled in some way.

The interrogation room was already familiar. Larger than the cell although not what Theron would consider a large room, it was dank and square and the duracrete walls were painted with some kind of thick soundproofing substance that left them looking like they might be soft to the touch. (They weren’t; the last time Theron had been in the room he’d been bound to the wall by the manacles, and had ample cause to know.) The room was sparsely furnished, with a metal table and two chairs – the table and one of the chairs bolted to the ground – and a set of manacles hung on the rear wall. Like their cell there was a small circular drain set into the floor; unlike the cell, the pale grey duracrete the drain was set into was stained with what looked like rust or dried blood. All in all the space was suitably intimidating, and Theron gave his captors high marks for thematic décor.

Last time Theron had been made to walk over to the wall with the manacles, where he’d then been chained up in such a way as to leave his midsection completely exposed and vulnerable. He hadn’t been a fan. This time around Sharnos indicated for him to sit in the bolted-down chair, the armoured man taking the seat across from him. Theron sat, seeing no particular reason to try and make a break for it or expend too much energy resisting when he knew it would end in futility. The chair was hard and cold against his bare ass, and he felt absurd, sitting there naked across from Sharnos in his full armour and helm. He was generally pretty blasé about nudity, but the contrast between his own nakedness and Sharnos’ armour made Theron’s vulnerability incredibly obvious. Still, this wasn’t his first interrogation, and it took a lot more than lounging around with his dangly bits hanging out for him to be intimidated. As Theron sat, he subtly set about triggering some of the anti-interrogation protocols in his implants, and almost immediately a dull droning noise began echoing in his ears, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of Sharnos’ voice. Theron’s own voice – still monologuing about Darth Nox – did the rest of the job at rendering Sharnos all but silent without making it obvious that that was what was happening.

Theron didn’t know why Kes had suggested Nox as his go-to ramble, but the Sith lord _was_ a subject he was fairly knowledgeable on, having spent a considerable amount of time in the man’s presence, and he was certainly fascinating enough that Theron could likely babble on about him for days. With Kes’s command at the forefront of Theron’s mind, that was exactly what Theron set out to do, starting with all the intel the SIS had garnered on the Sith over the years, then branching out into a few tales about the man’s pirate husband before sharing the story of Theron’s misadventures with Nox, Revel and Lana Beniko as they worked to shut down Revan and his cult. Somehow Theron managed to skip over the part about Revan being his own great-great-great-many-generations-removed ancestor – he told himself that part was irrelevant to the story, as it wasn’t in any way related to Nox and therefore had nothing to do with Kes’s order – and kept the focus on the Dark Council lord himself. He did end up talking a bit too much about the torture he’d experienced at the hands of the Revanites, but he made it more about how Nox and Revel rescued him and how they’d taken care of him afterwards, rather than exactly _what_ had been done to him or how he’d resisted. The key, it seemed, was to take the compulsion as literally as possible, bypassing anything and everything that didn’t directly connect to the main event – which, in this case, was Darth Nox. Theron’s mind was like one giant run-on sentence and Darth Nox was the only noun he knew.

Through it all Theron was dimly aware of Sharnos asking him questions, but he found himself utterly unable to focus on the man’s voice. Part of that came from his implants, doing their job to drown the man out; mostly, however, it was because he was too fixated on the topic of Nox to think about anything else. Whatever Sharnos had to say, whatever the man wanted to know, it was all shunted off to some other part of Theron’s mind, a part that wasn’t chemically forced into exposing everything he knew. At the moment Theron couldn’t think about what Sharnos was asking – literally _could not_ even think about it, his mind shying away from any non-Nox-related topics – but his memory was such that he knew that he would be able to go back over the experience and sort out those questions later, and hopefully get a sense of what, precisely, Sharnos was after.

Theron didn’t know how long he babbled on about Nox (and, to a lesser extent, Andronikos Revel: the man was so closely entwined with Theron’s knowledge of the Sith lord that it was almost impossible to separate the two in his mind), but by the time the compulsion wore off and his rambling died down his voice was raspy and his mouth was dry. Across the table from him Sharnos’ face was impassive, but his shocking blue eyes were filled with intense displeasure and Theron could practically feel the anger radiating from him.

“Are you _quite_ finished?” the man asked, voice frosty.

Theron considered the question, testing it to see whether or not he felt compelled to answer. He didn’t, but he chose to anyway: “Yup. Pretty much.”

Sharnos sighed, sounding more put out than anything else, as though he found Theron to be a particularly annoying and poorly-behaved child. He pushed his chair back and stood, towering over Theron, then headed for the door. Seated as he was with the door behind him Theron couldn’t quite see where the man was going, but after a few seconds he heard Sharnos’ voice, too quiet for him to make out the words but it was clear he was issuing some kind of order. There was a pause, and then another voice – again, too muffled to be made out clearly, but it sounded masculine to Theron – gave what sounded like an apology followed by some kind of explanation that was quickly cut off. Sharnos let out an angry huff and stalked back into the room.

“Rough day at the office?” Theron said, infusing his voice with patently false sympathy. If he could’ve managed to get his right eye to open fully he would’ve given Sharnos the big, round puppy-dog eyes in addition to the voice, but he had to make do with fake sincerity and a one-eyed attempt at the look. He was pleased to note that, as rough as his throat felt, he didn’t sound all that hoarse. Score one for the good guys.

“You –” Sharnos started to sputter before quickly cutting himself off, jabbing a finger in Theron’s direction without making contact. He shook his head once, a curt, almost violent motion, then drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, squaring his shoulders. Theron had been too absorbed with his ode to Darth Nox to notice how infuriated the other man was becoming, but now that his soliloquy was over he could see that Sharnos looked to be on the verge of a meltdown. That suited Theron just fine; if Director Trant (and Lana Beniko, and Darth Nox, and a whole string of exes and … well, there was a _list)_ could be believed, infuriating people was one of Theron’s strongest talents.

“Sit,” Sharnos said, speaking through clenched teeth. He jabbed at Theron again. “Stay.”

“Not a dog,” Theron pointed out helpfully. _Definitely not a well-trained or obedient one, anyway,_ he added mentally, but elected to keep the thought to himself.

Sharnos rounded on him, hunkering down so that his face was mere centimetres from Theron’s. Up close Theron could smell caf on the other man’s breath, and he thought longingly of the last cup he’d had. It felt like an eternity ago – another lifetime, even.

“You will sit here,” Sharnos growled directly into Theron’s face, “and you had better pray your little blue girlfriend answers my questions, or the both of you are going to have a very bad time.”

_What?_ Theron thought, but had the good sense not to say it out loud, _and so far this has been so much fun?_

With that, Sharnos whirled back around and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Theron, still seated at the table, leaned forward and sank his head into his hands.

O o O o O

Lacking chronometers or daylight to judge the passage of time Theron had no idea how long he sat at the table, but it was easily an hour at least, probably more. He suspected Sharnos wanted him to use that time to rethink his life’s choices, possibly reconsider whether or not he intended to answer any of the man’s questions (he did not), but instead he forced himself to sit and meditate on what he’d learned.

He’d already given the room a security check the first time he’d been brought in for interrogation, but habit made him do a thorough search again although nothing had changed since his last visit. The door was still hinged and bolted on the outside, so there was nothing for him to work with there. There were no windows, not even the standard two-way mirror setup Theron had become familiar with from previous interrogation experiences. (He’d been on both sides of that particular fence and vastly preferred the role of interrogator.) The floors and walls were the same poured duracrete he’d seen everywhere else in this place, and the lighting was that too-bright, buzzing fluorescent that made everything seem washed out and sickly. (A single dangling lightbulb would have been more stereotypical, but he gave his captors props for going with a less conventional motif.) The manacles were built into the wall, the duracrete poured in around their fastenings so that no matter how hard he tugged he couldn’t pull them free, and the chair and table that were bolted to the floor were likewise too secure for him to move. The other chair, the one Sharnos had used, was made of metal and welded together so perfectly that there was little chance he could get it to break apart. There was nothing Theron could use to effect his escape, and even if there had been he strongly suspected the door was being guarded, if not by more of those droids Sharnos had with him, then likely some security cameras or alarms. He could move around but he couldn’t leave, and while he could have used the free-range chair as a weapon there didn’t seem much point in doing so, given that even if he succeeded in taking Sharnos down he’d still have to contend with the man’s droids.

No, far better to sit and think.

Meditation was something that came naturally to Theron, even in circumstances such as this. His guardian, Master Zho, had trained him in it early; it was one of the first things he remembered doing at his mentor’s knee. Normally he would sit cross-legged, hands on his knees, and close his eyes, but in the small interrogation room he felt safer remaining in his bolted-down chair with his eyes open. He set his hands palm-down on the table, drew in a series of slow, steady breaths, and thought back on his experiences.

His body still felt twitchy and restless, but he’d been a twitchy, restless kid and that was a sensation he’d learned by necessity to ignore. Master Zho had been a good man but he’d never had much experience in raising children and had had little patience for his ward’s antics. He had simply expected that Theron would behave himself, and when Theron failed to do so his mentor’s disappointment was enough that he pushed himself harder the next time, so as to avoid upsetting or angering Master Zho. Now, as an adult, Theron could recognize the feelings of restlessness and agitation as external to himself, a lingering result of the drug he’d been given, and he could set it aside as momentarily unimportant. He wanted to get up and move around, but he didn’t _need_ to, and he could focus on other things.

Such as the memory of Sharnos’ voice, and the questions the man had tried to ask while Theron had been blathering on and on and _on_ about a dark lord of the Sith. (He sincerely hoped that he hadn’t referred to either Nox or Revel as “dreamy” and that if he had, Sharnos hadn’t _actually_ been paying attention to him. Seriously, it had just been a little crush. The Sith lord and the pirate had saved his life, after all.)

There were a lot of benefits to Theron’s early childhood Jedi training, not the least of which was his so-called disciplined mind. While he hadn’t been able to resist the compulsion to talk, Kes’s directive had at least given him something to _guide_ that compulsion – and it hadn’t stopped him from hearing Sharnos’ questions, nor had he wanted it to. Now, freed from the relentless urge to spill every single detail he knew, he could think back on those questions without feeling compelled to answer them.

Sharnos’ questions – and there had been a lot of them – had been all over the place, but the single, solitary focus was on the Republic, and what Theron knew of it. Specifically, the Republic and how it functioned on the core planet of Coruscant. Some of the questions were straightforward, the sort of things a child might be expected to learn in school, or that anyone, anywhere could learn simply through accessing the HoloNet. What sort of government did the Republic have? How was it organized? What was the population of Coruscant, and how was it distributed throughout the planet? How many different races and species was the Republic comprised of? Other questions were more complicated or specialized: who were the military leaders? The political leaders? What sort of security measures were in place to guard the planet? How quickly could defenses be scrambled in the event of an attack? Theron had to assume the more prosaic questions were simply to establish some sort of baseline in his answers, because it seemed impossible to him that someone could not already have that information. The only way that intel could have any value would be for his interrogator to be some Outer Rim bumpkin – and no bumpkin could have set up an elaborate operation like this on Nar Shaddaa.

It was as if Sharnos wasn’t Republic, wasn’t Imperial, wasn’t even some Hutt Cartel or Outer Rim denizen. Which was just … impossible. Right?

Theron let himself mull over Sharnos and the man’s questions until he was confident he had the details memorized. Once he and Kes were free and clear he would need to include all of this in his report to Director Trant, and he wanted to be certain he had as much intel as possible on his mysterious captor. He had a sneaking suspicion his capture had nothing to do with the Empire – after all, what point would there have been in snagging Kes, too? Besides which, there was nothing in Sharnos’ questioning that the Empire didn’t already know or have the means to discover – and if there was some new enemy out there, then it was Theron’s job to make sure his people knew as much about them as possible.

Once he was certain he had every detail locked away safe in his memory banks he turned his attention to the topic of Kes – more specifically, to Kes’s own reaction to the drug, or lack thereof. She’d claimed the drug had affected her, but he had no memory of it. If she’d rambled on and on about her own personal secrets then he’d completely blocked it out during his own episode, because the only thing he remembered her saying was his name and for him to stop talking. Had she simply recovered more quickly than he had? Was it a Chiss thing? He wracked his brain for details on Chiss biology, but the Republic’s resources were scarce on that particular topic and the only thing he really remembered from reading up on Chiss was that they were reclusive, secretive and xenophobic – none of which was terribly helpful in trying to determine whether Chiss were more resilient or resistant to toxins than humans.

She had said, though, hadn’t she? Back when they’d first found themselves trapped in that cell, she’d told him she was immune to mind control, and that this had somehow resulted in her becoming tougher and more resilient. Was it a Chiss thing? Theron doubted very much that it was a result of her Imperial Intelligence training; he couldn’t for the life of him imagine the Empire giving their spies the ability to resist mind-tricks, no matter how useful that ability might be against Jedi and other non-Imperial Force-users. There was no way the Sith would see their subjects trained to resist them. So maybe it was a Chiss thing. But the way Kes had said it – _“It’s a long story”_ – suggested it was something unique to her, something she was reluctant to discuss.

Maybe the reason Theron hadn’t heard her going off on her own secrets was because she _hadn’t_ , because the drug was some sort of mind control drug, and for whatever reason Kthira’kes’ina was immune to that. Theron knew the Empire employed a variety of mind-controlling or mind-altering substances against their enemies (and against their own people). He was familiar with the SLV-class drugs, serums and gases that were used to keep slaves and prisoners docile or force them to act against their own best interests. He’d been exposed to some in the past, as part of his training as well as out in the field, but his experiences were vastly different from what had happened to him in the Duros Sector or after he’d been dosed with the hypospray. Either this was some new class of drug or it had been mixed with something else, something that stripped away his senses and left him feeling like he was amped up on caf and spice. And if it was some kind of mind control drug and Kes was immune to it, then Sharnos was not going to be coming away from _that_ interrogation scene in a good mood, especially if he realized that Kes was the reason his interrogation with Theron had gone so poorly.

Before Theron had time to consider that too carefully the door swung open with a bang and Sharnos stormed back into the room. He marched over to Theron and grabbed him by the arm, hauling him up and out of his chair. Theron gave a thought to resisting, just to see if he could, but decided against it, letting Sharnos drag him out into the corridor. For once there were no droids waiting for them and Theron’s urge to try and fight Sharnos off increased until it occurred to him that if there weren’t any droids with Sharnos that meant they were likely all with Kes, and that definitely couldn’t be a good thing.

Theron let himself be pulled down the corridor, the route back to his cell a familiar one. Sharnos’ grip on his arm was solid, the fingers of the man’s heavy gauntlets digging in to Theron’s bicep, hard enough he was certain there would be bruises later. They got to the open door of the cell – two of the droids standing guard just outside – and Sharnos shoved Theron forward hard enough to make him stumble and almost fall. The view inside the cell brought him up short.

Kes was there, on the ground, curled up on her side trying to protect her head with her arms. The other two droids stood over her, shock-sticks in hand: one droid had its shock-stick pressed hard against Kes’s shoulder while the other was jabbing her in the hip. Both sticks were activated, arcs of bright white light dancing over Kes’s blue skin, and Theron could easily remember how much just _one_ of those things had hurt, never mind two in use at the same time. Kes twisted and jolted, body convulsing under the onslaught as a high, thin keening noise filled the air. It took Theron an embarrassingly long time to realize the noise was coming from her.

“Enough,” Sharnos snapped, and the two droids deactivated their shock-sticks simultaneously and stepped back, away from Kes’s twitching body. The keening didn’t stop, although it did take on a hoarse, almost watery quality that Theron didn’t like one bit. Sharnos gave him another shove, gauntleted hand slamming between his shoulder-blades to send him staggering forward into the cell. A hand closed around Theron’s shoulder, yanking him back just as he was about to drop to his knees beside Kes.

Sharnos drew him in close, hand squeezing Theron’s shoulder tightly. His face – what was visible under the helm – was hard, his blue eyes flashing dangerously.

“I’ve been informed that it would be … unsafe … to dose you again so soon,” the man said, the words coming out in a tight, controlled voice. “Apparently repeated exposures could result in your heart exploding or your mind melting.”

“Well, we can’t have _that,”_ Theron replied. He aimed to sound sarcastic, even nonchalant, but instead his voice sounded thick and wavery even to his own ears. He blamed his hours-long speech on Darth Nox and the unpleasant sight of Kes lying stunned and helpless on the ground. It certainly had nothing to do with how much the thought of having his mind destroyed terrified him.

“No, we certainly can’t,” Sharnos agreed, without a single trace of irony. He gave Theron another squeeze, then shoved him again, this time letting him drop down beside Kes.

At some unseen gesture the droids moved forward, striking Kes again with the shock-sticks. She twitched and convulsed but the strange, animalistic noises she’d been making stopped, cutting off with a choked-off cry that Theron liked even less than the sounds she’d made before. Theron knelt there, watching Kes seize and debating whether or not to try and intervene – he desperately wanted to make it stop but knew he’d only make the matter worse – but after only a few seconds the droids switched their weapons off again and stepped back, this time moving towards the door.

“We’ll let the drug work its way through your system before attempting another dose,” Sharnos said, and it was spoken so matter-of-factly that he might as well have been discussing the weather or a project he was thinking of trying out, rather than mind control and torture. “Let us hope, for your sake, that this previous exposure was an aberration. You’ll want to be _much_ more cooperative next time.”

Theron didn’t say anything although a number of acerbic retorts were on the tip of his tongue. Sharnos waited as if expecting a reply, but when none was forthcoming he and his droids exited the cell, the door slamming shut behind them. The locks had barely sounded before Theron was moving towards Kes, one hand reaching out to take her pulse.

She flinched the moment his hand touched her neck; he almost pulled away, then thought better of it and set his fingers against her pulse-point, finding her heartbeat fast and erratic. She was curled up on her side like a dead bug, her limbs still twitching faintly, her eyes open but empty. Then she gave a huge gasp and her hand caught hold of his wrist. She didn’t tug his hand away – from the tremor in her fingertips Theron suspected she didn’t have the strength to even make the attempt – but squeezed his wrist as if trying to get his attention.

“Theron.” Her teeth were chattering, making his name come out choppy and stuttered.

“Hey, you’re okay, it’s okay,” he replied, but she shook her head, her expression hard to decipher.

“I n-need …” She made a frustrated noise and tried again. “I n-need you t-to help m-me. Huh-help me. Move.”

“What?” Theron began, confused by her garbled request. Then he noticed the wet spot under her and her expression suddenly became a lot easier to read: shame. She was embarrassed and ashamed. He cursed under his breath, fighting against the impossible urge to find Sharnos and his droids and tear them all limb from limb because the bastards – could you even call a droid a bastard? Well, Theron was going to – had shocked her until she’d lost control over her own bodily functions and now she was lying on the cold duracrete floor in a puddle of urine and if that wasn’t enough to infuriate him she was incapable of moving herself and –

_Just help her, Shan,_ he told himself firmly, before his mind went completely off the rails. _She already feels like shit. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it._

Without a word Theron hooked his arms under Kes’s knees and back, and hauled her up and out of the wet spot. Her head knocked against his collarbone and she made a miserable sound into the hollow of his throat. Instead of setting her back down on the ground he pulled her up and into his lap, curling his arms around her while she continued to tremble and twitch. She kept her face buried against his skin and although he could feel the tears soaking his neck and chest her cries were muffled. He simply squeezed her more tightly, stroking her bare back with one hand while he cradled her head against his chest with the other. For the first time since this whole ordeal began the Chiss operative seemed very small and fragile, and it was a sharp contrast to the tough, confident woman he’d been working with. It seemed a fair exchange, however: she’d seen him through his own breaking point not that long ago, and it was only right that he should see her through hers.

“Hey,” he said again, voice soft. He pressed his lips to the top of her head, her dark blue hair tickling his nose. “Hey, you’re all right.”

She made that noise that Theron knew was a Chiss – _Cheunh,_ his mind corrected helpfully – curse but which sounded more like a cat sneezing, then drew away slightly, face wrinkling with revulsion. “I’m disgusting.”

“You’re gorgeous,” he replied, then shut his mouth so hard he could hear his teeth click together. It was true – bruises and days’ old sweat and the strong reek of urine aside – but he shouldn’t have said it. Kriff, there was no way to take it back that wouldn’t come out sounding just as bad or making her feel worse about her situation, and this, this awkwardness and inappropriateness was why Theron was almost certainly going to die alone. He was pretty sure all his old mentors and trainers back at the SIS would have pointed out that an Imperial spy was absolutely the _last_ person he should be complimenting, outside of a honeypot operation. And this sure as kriff was no honeypot.

Kes opened her mouth, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by the sound of the door grating open. She pulled back, and Theron looked up just as Sharnos and one of the droids re-entered the cell. The droid was carrying the hose again.

Sharnos, it seemed, had the unerring knack of a bully to pinpoint his enemies’ weaknesses, for he walked back into the cell and pointed at the puddle Theron had dragged Kes out of. The man’s expression was one of abject distaste and he looked at Kes as though she was the filthiest creature he’d ever happened upon.

“Look what you’ve done, you revolting thing,” Sharnos snarled, wagging his finger like an incensed school-teacher who’d caught his students at some indiscretion. “You’ve made a mess. You’re _disgusting._ I should leave you to wallow in your own filth just to teach you a lesson, but I doubt you’ve got the good sense to know better.”

Theron felt Kes tense against him and a quick glance down revealed the high colour in her cheeks, her face going almost purple with embarrassment. He started to get up, ready to tear into Sharnos – if anything, Kes soiling herself was _Sharnos’_ doing, not hers – but before he could even begin to speak the droid switched the hose on and a blast of icy-cold water struck him and Kes. Theron got a mouthful of water and was left sputtering and swearing while Kes jerked and cried out. The droid sprayed them both, letting the water run over them for a good half a minute before turning the hose onto the floor, cleaning up the spot where Kes had been lying. Once the droid had finished, both it and Sharnos left again, this time without further commentary.

Where before Theron had been the one shivering and shaking from the cold, this time around it was Kes who was trembling so violently it looked like she was being zapped with the shock-sticks all over again. He suspected her quaking had as much to do with shock as with the blast of ice-water, and his immediate reaction was to try and hold her again until the shivering subsided. But he was every bit as cold as she was and he wasn’t going to be of much use to her if they both came down with hypothermia. Casting his gaze around the cell Theron’s eyes came to rest at last on Itayo’s body, lying where they had left him what felt like ages ago.

_He’s dead, Shan,_ Theron told himself, pulling away from Kes. _He won’t mind._

“Come on,” he said out loud, moving towards Itayo. “Can you move? Can you help me?”

Kes looked like she wanted to ask what he was doing, but as soon as he knelt down next to Itayo she seemed to understand, and a resigned expression came over her face. Theron felt tremendously disrespectful as he crouched and began stripping the clothes from Itayo’s corpse, like he was dishonouring his colleague by mistreating his body in such a fashion. Itayo was dead, however, and his clothes were dry and relatively clean, and neither Theron nor Kes could afford to spend much longer in a cold cell, especially not now that they were soaking wet again. They were both far too pragmatic to let a potential resource go to waste.

Undressing a corpse was harder than it looked. Theron had done it before and there was something strangely dissimilar about doing so as compared to undressing someone who was merely unconscious, rather as though the body gained weight and heft through the process of dying. Part of it, he knew, came from the fact that Itayo was still stiff with rigor mortis, the dead limbs unyielding in a way that an unconscious body simply was not. The other part was the distastefulness of the experience: the act of undressing Itayo felt like a violation, and that made Theron’s fingers clumsy and his arms weak. Telling himself that Itayo wouldn’t have minded did little to lessen Theron’s guilt, and every inch of exposed skin felt like a new betrayal, like Theron was going out of his way to leave his colleague vulnerable. Even with Kes’s help it took far longer than it needed to, but once Itayo was stripped down to just his socks and underwear – neither of which Theron wanted to try wearing – Theron and Kes divided the clothing between them. He handed Kes Itayo’s shirt, which was long-sleeved and far too big for her, and kept the pants and undershirt for himself. He would’ve given Kes the undershirt as well, since she was still shaking quite badly, but at the end of the day she was still Chiss and shock or no shock she had better tolerance for the cold than he did.

They dressed themselves in silence. Kes had to roll up the sleeves on the shirt in order to keep her hands free, and Theron found the pants kept sliding down over his hips, but in the end they were partially clothed and that was better than nothing. It was fortunate that Itayo had been such a big man; there was no way Theron could have fit into his other teammates’ pants. Itayo’s boots were too large for Theron, however, and while he had the fleeting idea of putting them on anyway he knew that in the event of a quick escape he’d just end up tripping over his own feet. Bare feet were a liability but at least he could walk around without stumbling over himself.

Kes stood, legs trembling, and pulled the hair tie loose from her hair. She bent over, twisting her long blue hair into a thick coil and squeezing the water from it before beginning the elaborate - and, to Theron’s way of thinking, frankly arcane - procedure of tying it back up. As she did so Theron found himself watching her; initially he was watching for signs of deterioration or further collapse, but after a few seconds he realized something about her appearance seemed wrong to him. There was something … off. It took him a few more seconds before he finally clued in to the near-pristine condition of her shirt. Itayo’s shirt, which – while somewhat on the grimy side – didn’t appear to have any blood on it, nor was the fabric ripped or torn.

Puzzled, Theron tore his gaze away from Kes and looked at the body a few feet from them. Itayo’s corpse was a mess of lacerations, contusions and burns, the torso no less damaged than the face or the arms and legs. He looked down at his borrowed pants, and saw that they, too, were relatively unscathed, as was his undershirt. The borrowed clothing certainly wasn’t clean, not by a long shot, but it wasn’t bloodied or damaged the way it should have been had Itayo been wearing it while being tortured.

“What is wrong?” Kes asked, noticing his interest. She had finished tying up her hair so that it sat in a tight bun on top of her head, but a few wisps and dark blue strands stuck up here and there.

“Itayo’s clothes,” Theron replied distractedly. He moved closer to the body, intent upon taking a better look. Sure enough he could see open cuts on the dead man’s chest, wounds that had been bloody and should have made a mess of whatever he was wearing. Theron sucked in a startled breath. “They redressed him.”

“They what?” Kes looked from Theron to the corpse, and Theron could see her coming to the same conclusion. Her brow furrowed. “But why?”

Theron frowned down at the corpse, thinking hard. He felt fairly certain Itayo hadn’t been redressed in order to provide him and Kes with spare clothing to wear, but then, what purpose would there have been in dressing a dead man? In all likelihood Itayo had been made to strip down, just as Theron and Kes had been when they first arrived in the cell, and whatever tortures he’d suffered had likely been inflicted while he was naked. It made the victim feel more vulnerable that way. Torture was as much about getting inside someone’s head as it was about destroying their body. Furthermore, redressing Itayo after he’d died was rather more respectful of the dead than Sharnos seemed inclined to be - it required a sense of honour that Sharnos was rather lacking - and yet _someone_ had done it. Sharnos? The droids? Then Theron’s gaze fell on Itayo’s face, battered and bloodied and nigh-unrecognizable.

“So I would know it was him,” he said, thinking out loud. At Kes’s questioning glance he gestured at the body. “Maybe they thought I wouldn’t recognize him without his clothes.”

“Would you have?”

Theron looked at the ruined mess before him and shook his head slowly. He didn’t know. He and Itayo hadn’t known each other all that long; this was the first op they’d worked together, and the younger agent had been fairly new to the SIS. In all likelihood he wouldn’t have recognized the other man, not like this. But if recognition had been the reason for Itayo’s body being re-clothed, then that meant his presence here in the cell – and maybe even his death as well – was intended as some sort of statement, a message Theron was meant to interpret. They’d done this so that Theron would know him and would know what had been done to him. This wasn’t about respecting Itayo at all, it was about making sure Theron knew what could happen if he and Kes didn’t play along.

“Hey.” Kes’s hand on his arm made Theron startle; he hadn’t realized she’d moved so close to him. At his quizzical look she jerked her chin toward Itayo’s body and said, voice soft, “This isn’t on you.”

Theron shot her a sardonic grin, impressed at how easily and accurately she’d read him. “You a mind-reader now? Or is that some Chiss thing?”

“I can read you like the skies on Csilla, Agent Shan,” Kes replied, returning the grin. It was weak and watery and - Theron thought - it didn’t quite reach her eyes, but the grin was there.

“That’s a terrifying prospect, Red Blade.” He spoke without heat, his tone teasing rather than horrified and appalled the way it should have been. He was growing far too comfortable around this woman, and it was almost certainly going to come back and bite him in the ass.

Kes moved in closer, both hands coming up to cup his face. It was strangely intimate, made even more so by the way she rubbed her thumb over the hard metallic ridge of his implant, just above his left eyebrow. He couldn’t be certain, given how difficult he found it to read her all-red eyes, but when she looked up at him he got the distinct impression she was searching his face, looking for something. When her fingertips brushed over the sensor array over his zygomatic arch and her expression smoothed out he was sure of it: the gesture, intimate as it was, felt more like she was reassuring herself than comforting him. Reassuring herself of _what,_ however, he had no clue.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. His voice was hoarse; he had to clear his throat to speak, and he didn’t know where that lump in his throat came from in the first place. Maybe he was getting a cold. It certainly had nothing to do with Kes’s close proximity, or her warm hands on his face. Definitely not.

“I have a plan.”

He blinked, then nodded. Maybe she’d seen more of their prison; maybe she had a better idea of what they were up against. “Is it a good plan?”

“No. Oh, no.” Kes laughed, but there was very little humour in the sound. “It is a terrible plan. We’ll probably both be killed.” Then she released his face, drawing away, her expression sobering. “It’s the only plan I’ve got.”

“Okay.” Theron nodded again. If Itayo’s death was intended as a statement, Theron could read it clearly enough: _If we stay here, we’ll die anyway._ What choice did they have? At least this way they went out on their own terms, instead of letting Sharnos and his tin soldiers break them down piece by piece. “Sounds great. Let’s do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at https://salaciouscrumpet.tumblr.com/ or my commissions blog https://salaciouscrumpetwrites.tumblr.com/ where you can commission me to write pretty much whatever you want.


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